


The Hunt

by exclamation



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: F/M, First Time, Kidnapping, M/M, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-14
Updated: 2013-06-30
Packaged: 2017-12-14 23:09:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 17
Words: 31,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/842453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/exclamation/pseuds/exclamation
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blair is kidnapped by a group who know enough about Sentinels to keep Jim off the trail. Now Jim is hunting for his missing partner and the kidnappers... are hunting for something else entirely.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Capture

**Author's Note:**

> This is post TSbyBS. In this story, Blair was able to stay on with the police department as a civilian consultant and his partnership with Jim continued much as it was before. 
> 
> There will be depictions of torture and self-harm in later chapters. Please don't read if those would be triggering to you.

All Blair had planned for the evening was a bit of dinner and a lot of reading. He and Jim had been working their asses off lately, with two murders and a blackmail ring case kicking off at the same time. But they were all neatly wrapped up. Jim had a pile of paperwork to deal with to officially close the cases, but Blair was free to read something that wasn’t about fingerprints and credit card history of people of dubious morals. He’d brought a really interesting-looking book on the archaeological discoveries of Qin Dynasty China and it had been sitting on his shelf for a month unopened. 

Now Blair picked up the book from his room and came through to the kitchen area of the loft so he could flick through the introduction while stirring vegetables. The fridge had looked like an experiment in bio-warfare (according to Jim) so Blair had stopped off on the way back from the station and had a whole array of fresh vegetables ready to turn into a sweet and sour stir-fry. Perfect accompaniment to a book on Chinese history. 

A knock came on the door just as Blair was browning onions. 

“Who is it?” he called as he turned down the heat and shifted the pan so the onions wouldn’t burn.

“Matt Arling,” a male voice called. A name that was utterly unfamiliar. 

“Who?” 

He reached the door and opened it. There was a big guy standing in the hallway. He was at least as tall as Jim and heavily muscled, a loose jacket just making him look bigger. He looked down at Blair, a confused expression forming under military-short hair. 

“Who are you?” he asked. 

“I’m Blair. I live here.” 

The guy glanced at a piece of paper that had this address scrawled on it. 

“I was looking for Jim Ellison,” the guy said. 

"He’s still at work, finishing off paperwork,” Blair answered. 

“Oh. I was hoping to catch up with him. I’m only here for a few hours between flights. Do you know when he’ll be back?” 

This guy could have had “old army buddy” tattooed across his forehead. 

“I’m not sure. I’m not expecting him for several hours but I could give him a call, see if he could wrap up quickly.” 

Blair stepped aside, letting Matt into the apartment. He’d already started moving towards the phone. 

“That won’t be necessary.” 

Blair turned back to him. He saw the gun. 

Matt was standing near the doorway, aiming a small handgun directly at Blair. 

“Hands on your head,” Matt said. Blair wasn’t going to argue, but his eyes were quickly darting about for something he could use as a weapon. Unfortunately, the closest thing he could grab was a cushion off the couch. He doubted that would be very effective against a gun. He couldn’t even grab a hot pan of onions because that was across the other side of the room. So Blair stood and meekly placed his hands on his head, while his mind raced frantically looking for a way out. 

Matt hadn’t been asking when Jim was due back because he wanted to see him. He’d been asking because he didn’t want to be disturbed. 

Two more people came into the apartment. One was a big guy but in a very different sense to Matt; his stomach overhung his jeans. He carried a large cardboard box, which he placed on the kitchen counter. The other person was a young woman. She couldn’t have been much older than twenty, about the same age as the guy with the box, but the expression on her face belonged to someone much older. She looked at Blair in a hard, cold way that sent a shiver down his spine as she walked towards him like a hunter assessing her prey. She had a roll of duct tape in her hands and took very little time in pulling Blair’s arms down and taping his wrists together behind his back. 

“What’s this about?” Blair asked. 

“Keep quiet,” she snapped, “or you’ll get this over your mouth.” 

Blair rapidly considered his options. Talking his way out seemed unlikely at this point and screaming for help later was something he definitely wanted to keep on the cards. So he stayed quiet, instead looking over to where the overweight guy was pulling something out of the box. It was a strange contraption. A small, metal cylinder had a few wires poking out and a canister about the length of Blair’s forearm stuck in the top. There was also a digital display on the front with a timer. 

All resolve to keep silent vanished. 

“Is that a bomb?” 

Scary girl slapped a piece of duct tape over Blair’s mouth, turning any remaining protests into incoherent muffles. 

Overweight guy pressed a button and the timer started counting down from ten minutes. He grabbed the box and then glanced back towards the hob, one ring of which was still turned on, ready for Blair to finish his dinner. The guy shifted the box so he could turn the gas off, which struck Blair as really odd if they were about to blow this place up. 

“Ready,” he said. 

Blair felt something sharp pressing the side of his back. Scary girl was standing behind him and now she leaned in close, giving a soft whisper in his ear. 

“We’re going to walk to the elevator nice and slowly. You try anything stupid and I’ll cut your kidney out.” 

She said it in such a tone as to suggest she was actually looking forward to it. Blair had very little difficulty believing she’d do it. Matt still held his gun, but he held it under his jacket, no longer aiming directly at Blair. However, as he moved to hide the weapon, Blair got a tiny glimpse of what was hidden beneath that jacket. The guy had at least two other guns tucked under their. Blair was glad mathematics wasn’t his strongest subject because he didn’t want to calculate the odds of getting out of this unstabbed and free from bullet holes. 

Scary girl gave a slight prod with her knife. It wasn’t enough to break skin, but it was enough to get Blair moving. Matt walked beside him, gun still clutched ready in his hand. The overweight guy walked behind them with the box. Blair hoped that one of his neighbours would open their door and see him but they were undisturbed as they walked to the elevator. Once inside, overweight guy set the box down and removed another of the strange cylinder bomb things. He positioned it in the corner of the elevator and set the timer. 

Someone would have to notice that, right? Someone would get in the elevator and call in bomb disposal. 

“You can’t do this,” Blair tried to say. The words were mangled by the tape on his mouth but he suspected they were understood. Scary girl gave another jab with the knife. 

“Quiet,” she said. “We don’t want to leave a trail of blood for him to find.” 

Him. Blair’s mind was still working, despite the fear coursing through his veins. They had to be talking about Jim. They’d asked for him by name, which meant this wasn’t some random act. They’d panned this carefully. The question was: why? If he could figure that out, maybe he could figure out a way out of this. 

They emerged from the elevator into the parking lot. Again, Blair silently cursed the absence of his neighbours. Why the hell was no one around to witness his kidnapping? The overweight guy paused to set up the third and final one of his bombs, while the others bundled Blair towards a nondescript, white van. They’d picked something that no one would glance twice at on the road. 

Matt opened the doors at the back and then grabbed one of Blair’s arms, half-hauling him up and into the darkness. Scary girl gave an unexpected shove and Blair stumbled, landing heavily on the metal floor of the van. She took the opportunity to wrap a load of tape around Blair’s lower legs. He wasn’t going to be walking away from this any time soon. Matt grabbed Blair’s arms again and hauled him up, dumping him on a narrow bench that ran the length of the van. A similar bench ran on the other side. Scary girl sat down on this, directly across from Blair. She gave him a cold smile and twirled her knife in her hands. 

The overweight guy shoved the box into the back of the van and jumped up to join them, pulling a chord to turn on a small light bulb and sitting down beside scary girl. Then Matt left them in the back, closing the doors on them. The light was as gloomy as Blair’s current prospects. 

The engine roared to life and the van chugged its way gently out of the parking lot. There was no racing, no rapid turns, nothing to indicate anything was remotely wrong. Blair listened, ears straining for police sirens or something, but the van just carefully made its way from his home. 

He couldn’t even check his watch to see if the bombs had gone off yet. 

***

Jim Ellison pulled his truck into his space in the parking lot and was overwhelmed by the smell before he’d even opened the door. It wasn’t unpleasant, just far too strong, as if someone had dropped a crate of perfume bottles right at his feet. Fragrances of flowers surged up, nearly causing a zone-out while still at the wheel. He quickly turned off the engine and took a few moments to dial down his sense of smell and get control back. When he opened the door of the truck, he nearly lost control again. Every breath was loaded with this sweet, flowery smell that wiped out everything else. 

He stumbled towards the elevator, hoping to get away from the smell once he got away from the parking lot, but the elevator was just as bad. When he emerged into the hallway outside his apartment, the smell was still thick and heavy, clinging to the fabric of the building. It felt like Jim would never be free of the smell. 

Then he opened his apartment door and the perfuming odour engulfed him again, stronger here than anywhere else. 

“Blair!” he yelled. “Blair, what the hell have you been up to?” 

Silence answered. It was hard to focus on anything but the smell, but Jim was aware of cold silence in the apartment. He saw the half-prepared ingredients of a meal scattered around the kitchen. Blair was quite capable of putting something in the toaster and forgetting about it but this was a step above that. Plus, Blair’s wallet and keys were on the little table by the door. 

Jim saw the strange device on the kitchen counter and knew without trying that it was the source of the horrendous smell. There wasn’t a chance in hell that this was something of Blair’s. 

He had his cell phone out of his pocket and was already pulling up Simon’s number from the speed dial. Simon was incredibly grouchy at being called this late, but he was quickly attentive when Jim said that Blair was missing. 

Jim waited out on the balcony for the group from major crime to get there. He couldn’t stand being in the apartment with that smell. He tried to investigate from the distance, peering through the windows, but there was nothing out of the ordinary. Everything looked as though Blair had just stepped away for a second. Apart from that strange device on the counter. 

Taggart came along with Banks to investigate the apartment. He had a good look at the thing, announcing that it was on a timer like a bomb only, instead of explosives, it sprayed out a strong perfume in high pressure jets designed to soak everything around and fill the air. The uniformed men inspecting the rest of the building found more in the stairwell, elevator, parking lot and hallways. The entire building had been drenched in the stuff. 

“Why the hell would they do that?” Banks asked. 

“To disable me,” Jim answered. He’d come back into the apartment, but was leaving the balcony doors open to try and get some fresh air in. 

The major crimes team hadn’t bought Blair’s phony confession about his dissertation. It was clear to all of them that Jim’s Sentinel abilities were real so he’d become a lot more comfortable about discussing them in front of the team over the past few years. Jim had been able to use his abilities to spot a suspect based on the brand of cigarettes they smoked or gum they chewed. With this scent over everything, there wasn’t a faintest chance of him tracking anything after this. He was barely managing to keep his sense of smell from overriding all his other senses. 

“An anti-Sentinel bomb,” said Taggart, shaking his head. “It’s a clever piece of work.” 

“So you think whoever grabbed Sandburg knows about you being a Sentinel?” said Banks. 

“Either that or they really like perfume.” 

Forensics went over the place but found no fingerprints on the scent bomb. The only ones in the apartment were ones that were expected. The materials of the bomb were standard things that could have been picked up anywhere. The timer was from a digital stopwatch. The canister was usually used for compressed gas for blowing up party balloons. Even the perfume was made from essential oils which could be bought at any of a hundred shops in Cascade. There was nothing there that pointed to anything unique. 

Blair was missing and Jim didn’t have the faintest idea where to start looking.


	2. The Cell

Chapter Two 

The ride in the back of the van was uncomfortable and more boring than Blair would have expected for being kidnapped. He wasn’t sure how long the ride lasted, but it was enough for his shoulders to ache and his wrists start to hurt from being tied up. He shifted a few times to try and get more comfortable, but sharp looks from scary girl kept him still. 

Fortunately she’d put away her knife early into the journey. Instead her hand was on the guy’s. They played their fingers across each other’s. Blair guessed they were a couple, though he wouldn’t have expected it. The movements seemed natural, almost unconscious. The girl seemed to be relaxing slightly under his touch, a faint smile touching her lips that bore no resemblance to the looks she’d sent Blair’s direction. 

Then scary girl noticed Blair watching. Her eyes went hard and sharp again and her hand stilled. 

“You’re lucky we need your eyes,” she said, “or I’d gouge them out for staring.” 

Her face was a cold mask, perhaps angry that he’d caught a glimpse beneath the surface. Whatever the reason, Blair wasn’t going to argue with her. He couldn’t. The tape was still across his mouth. 

When the journey finally came to an end, the van pulled up somewhere and parked. The overweight guy reached into his box, which was now almost empty. Almost. There was a dark sack of cloth big enough to go over Blair’s head. It blocked his vision pretty effectively. He could get a tiny glimpse of the floor at his feet if he strained but that was about it. 

The scary girl came up to him. He saw the flash of light against the blade of her knife and his heart jumped in fear. But she was just cutting the tape around his legs so he could walk. They hauled him down from the van and cold, night air touched his skin. He tried to do what Jim would have done and he focused on what he could tell from his senses. Outside somewhere and quiet. There wasn’t much traffic noise. The knife pressed into his back and he was marched forwards, opportunities for sensory investigation limited. They crunched across gravel for a few steps and then across a threshold onto a threadbare carpet. 

Blair caught a woman’s voice, her tone obviously concerned, saying something about someone getting worse. 

The scary girl’s knife jabbed at Blair’s back and he stumbled across the carpet onto tiled floor. Then there was another door and a set of concrete steps leading downwards. They must be putting him in the basement. He was marched a little further on and then the hood was removed. Blair got a good look at his new home. 

A wall had blocked off the back half of the basement and the space beyond had been made ready for him. The only furniture was a chair and table in the middle of the space. There was a bucket in one corner with a little bottle of hand-sanitizer next to it. Blair guessed that was supposed to be his toilet. The only other things in the room were sitting on top of the table. There was a plastic bottle of water, a notepad and pen, and a cardboard folder. 

The knife sliced through the tape around Blair’s arms. Hands free, the first thing he did was reach up for the tape across his mouth. A few strands of hair had been caught and pulled unpleasantly as he ripped the thing free. Then he turned to glare at his kidnappers. Matt and scary girl had come with him into this little cell. 

“What’s all this about?” Blair demanded. 

“This,” Matt reached over to the folder and on the table and flipped it open. Inside were several sheets of paper, covering in writing and symbols. Blair recognised the language form as having been found on temples in Peru. It was a written form of a language similar to the one the modern Chopec tribe used. 

Blair feigned ignorance, “You kidnapped me because someone likes doodling?” 

“You’re going to translate these for us,” Matt said. 

“Am I?” 

“Yes, you are.” Scary girl still had her knife out. She had the tip against one finger of her left hand and was twirling it back and forth by the handle with her right. 

“I’m not a linguist,” Blair protested. “I’m an anthropologist. Yes, I’ve had to study the writings of other cultures as part of my studies but usually with translations and reference materials and papers written by people who are actually linguists.” 

Matt stepped up to Blair, put a hand on either shoulder and pushed him down. Blair collapsed into the chair. Matt then grabbed the back of the chair and turned it round to face the table. Then he pulled the folder over until it was directly in front of Blair. Each movement was slow and deliberate. 

“You will translate these for us,” Matt said again. 

“What if I can’t?” 

“Then Sara gets to have fun,” Matt glanced towards scary girl. On the plus side, Blair now had a name for another of his captors. On the negative side, Sara was smiling that cold grin again, flashing her knife in the light. 

They started to leave, but Blair was acutely aware of his empty stomach. They’d grabbed him before dinner. 

“Does this place do room service?” he asked. 

“If you cooperate,” Matt said. He pointed at the folder, “Translate some of that and we’ll let you eat.” 

The door slammed behind him and Blair heard a bold slide home. He was on his feet a moment later, listening at the door to their retreating footsteps, which were followed by another door. Then he looked for an escape option. 

The door wasn’t doing to budge, that became obvious pretty quickly. Blair’s attempts to barge it open just resulting in a sore and bruised shoulder. The floor was rough concrete. The walls were bare bricks. There were no windows, no other ways in and out. There was a ventilation brick but it was in the wall leading to the rest of the cellar, not the outside world. There were no gaps that he could so much as put a note through, no way he could signal to the world beyond these walls. 

Blair spent a good ten minutes trying to find some way out, even though it was obvious after about thirty seconds that he wasn’t going to find one. 

Which left him two options. Firstly, he could sit around like a damsel in distress in some fairy tale waiting for Jim to come and rescue him. Or secondly, he could figure out what was really going on here so that he could try and reason with his kidnappers. 

He sat down at the table and looked at the papers in the folder. 

Most were pieces of drawing paper that had been covered with symbols, but some of the sheets had had a former life. Someone had used scraps of newspaper and the back of pages printed with other things. One sheet had the start of a grocery list on it before the scrawl of symbols took over. Whoever had written these pages hadn’t bothered with neatness or order. They hadn’t bothered with keeping the page the same way up. In some places, one trailing line of writing cut across another, nearly obliterating the first with the later one. 

Blair had been telling the truth when he’d said he wasn’t a linguist, but he’d had a special reason to be interested in the ruins that these symbols came from. He recognised a symbol that appeared at least once on every single sheet: the symbol for Sentinel. 

Someone had written page after page of scribbles about Sentinels. 

Blair wished he was surprised, but these guys had known Jim’s name. They’d planned this carefully. No doubt Jim was the real focus here. 

Blair stared at the sheets, trying to identify the symbols he recognised and piece together something of this jigsaw. The more he knew, the better able he’d be to fight. But he wasn’t going to pick up the pen or notepad. He wasn’t going to write down a single word. 

These guys weren’t getting anything they could use against Jim. 

***

The kidnappers knew about Jim being a Sentinel. That was the only clue they had. The rest of the building had proved clean. The neighbours hadn’t noticed anything suspicious until the perfume bombs went off. Forensics hadn’t found anything. Jim hadn’t found anything. 

There’d been no note, no phone call, no ransom demands. Nothing. 

Jim didn’t think he’d ever felt this helpless. 

Banks had insisted that someone else had to be the lead detective on this investigation, but Jim wasn’t about to be left out. So Rafe was sitting in Jim’s living room, waiting in case of a call from the kidnapper, while the discussed possible next steps. 

“The book,” Jim said suddenly, as the thought popped into his head. 

“What book?” Rafe asked. He looked across to the book Blair had been reading, which had been propped open on the kitchen counter, but Jim shook his head. 

“Sandburg’s book! The kidnapper knew enough about me to effectively cripple my senses. What if they got it from reading Sandburg’s book? We could be dealing with someone from the publisher or the news outlets who are angry because Blair’s retraction made them look foolish.” 

“You’re clutching at straws, man,” Rafe said. 

“Straws are all I’ve got.” 

Rafe sighed, “So we’ve got to track down everyone who had access to the manuscript before Sandburg pulled the plug?” 

Jim understood his reluctance. A hell of a lot of people had got hold of the story in those few days. It wouldn’t be a short suspect list, but it was a start. And it was a hell of a lot better than sitting around waiting for a phone call that wasn’t coming. 

Jim went to get his laptop and set to work.


	3. Blood

Blair guessed he’d been in the basement cell for a couple of hours. He hadn’t been wearing his watch when he’d been kidnapped and no one had given him a clock. He was tired and hungry. He’d stared at the sheets of paper, looking at the lines of scribbles across them, because there wasn’t anything else to do. 

He wasn’t fluent in this language but he recognised enough key words to work out the gist of parts. The word Sentinel appeared again and again, the word for Shaman appearing nearly as often. One phrase was repeated somewhere on almost every sheet. Blair had spent a long time staring again that phrase, trying to dredge up the meaning of words from his memory and fitting them together like a jigsaw puzzle. He thought he had a rough translation: a Sentinel without a Shamon is lost in the jungle without a guide. 

But having the meaning of a sentence didn’t give him anything to help him in context. He wasn’t sure what his kidnappers were after but he didn’t think they’d be happy even if he gave them what he’d worked out. 

When the door opened, Blair looked up, almost grateful for something other than lines of foreign text to look at. 

Matt and Sara came in. Neither looked too happy when they saw the notepad exactly where it had been when they’d left. 

“What have you got for us?” Matt asked. Blair could hear him trying to keep the anger from his tone. 

Blair tried not to show his fear as he replied, “Nothing.” 

“We need to know what those say!” Matt jabbed a finger towards the folder. 

Blair folded his arms across his chest and looked up at him, “Tough.” 

Matt stepped forward, looming over where Blair still sat. His anger was radiating off him in waves. 

“I don’t think you understand the seriousness of your situation.” 

But Blair understood. He understood too well. This was about Sentinels. The word appeared over and over on those bits of paper. These people were dangerous and everything they knew about Sentinels took them a step closer to Jim. So he kept his lips pressed together and met Matt’s gaze. His mouth was dry from fear and he could feel his heart pounding in his chest, but he wasn’t going to budge on this. 

“We’re going to get what we want from you,” Matt said, “one way or another. Why don’t you make this easier on yourself?” 

“Why don’t you go to hell?” 

He just had to stay strong until Jim came to get him. Blair could keep his mouth shut until then. Blair imagined Jim, sniffing the air looking for a scent, or casting his gaze around the apartment for some minute clue. Jim would find something. He’d come. Blair repeated that thought like a prayer and kept his arms tightly folded so it wouldn’t be obvious that his hands were trembling. 

"Blair, come on,” Matt said. The tone was surprising, pleading, almost sorrowful. Blair tried to hide his shock as well as the fear. He kept silent. 

With almost reluctance, Matt stepped around the chair. He took hold of Blair from behind, wrapped his arms around Blair’s torso, pressing him into the chair and pinning his arms. Blair tried to struggle but wasn’t surprised to find that he was held fast. Matt was strong. 

Sara didn’t seem at all reluctant. She smiled as coldly as before as she pulled her knife from the sheath at her belt. She considered it carefully before slowing bringing it up to hover in front of his face. Blair reduced his struggles; he didn’t want to accidentally impale himself if Matt’s grip slipped. 

“We need your eyes intact,” she said, slowly, as though weighing options carefully. “And it’s probably useful for you to have your tongue. We might need you to explain some of your translations.” She brought the point of the knife slowly downwards, making circular motions over his chest as she continued her list, “A lot of organs in the torso, too easy to make a slip. You’re no good to us dead.” The knife continued its slow journey downwards until the tip was pointed directly at his crotch. Her smile widened. “You don’t need those.” 

Blair could feel little but the terror. He was quite willing to believe that she'd cut his balls off. His mind was racing again but unfortunately it seemed to be racing with the single thought that this woman was crazy. 

His mouth was so dry that he wasn’t sure he could speak, but he tried anyway. A meaningless croak escaped. 

“You changing your mind about helping?” Sara asked. She looked a little disappointed. 

Blair tried again to speak. 

“There’s a lot of blood flow in that area,” he said. “I might pass out from blood loss. That wouldn’t help you.” 

For a fraction of a second, Blair thought he saw amusement on Sara’s face. Then she gave a sort of sideways shrug. 

“We can work up to that,” she said. 

She knelt in front of the chair and set her knife aside for a moment to reach for Blair’s foot to remove his shoe. 

With his other leg, Blair aimed a kick for her face. 

Sara dodged sideways, grabbed his leg and slammed it back against the chair. His calf slammed into a wooden bar between the front legs of the chair. Pain throbbed down the lower leg but Blair used his other foot to aim a kick for the side of her head. 

She ended up grabbing both his legs to hold him in place, while Matt tightened the grip around his torso. 

“Someone bring the tape!” Matt yelled. 

Blair kept writhing against the two grips. He was out of breath from the exertion when the cell door opened and the overweight guy came in, clutching the roll of duct tape. With Sara holding Blair in position, the guy taped Blair’s ankles to the front legs of the chair. He’d lifted Blair’s trousers first, sticking the tape to skin. That meant that Sara could push the trousers up to bunch around Blair’s knees, exposing the skin of his lower legs. She quickly removed Blair’s shoes and socks while the overweight guy and Matt got Blair’s torso taped to the back of the chair and then finished it off by taping Blair’s arms behind his back. 

There wasn’t much tape left on the roll now, but the overweight guy put it on the table anyway. 

“Thanks, honey,” Sara said as the guy left Blair with his two interrogators. 

Blair continued to struggle, even though the loops of tape showed no sign of breaking. 

“You can end this,” Matt said. “Just tell us what we need to know. Just translate the writings.” 

A part of Blair wanted to. A part of Blair was terrified of the uses Sara might put that knife to. But he kept picturing Jim in his place. 

“Go to hell,” Blair said. 

Sara picked up her knife again, kneeling in front of Blair. She ran her fingers up and down his left shin. It was a gentle touch, almost a caress. Her fingers brushed against the fine hairs that grew there, raising a faint trace of goosebumps. Then she touched her knife to his skin. 

The blade was sharp. It took several seconds for the pain to register, but then it formed a line down his lower leg as though someone had pressed a hot wire against his skin. 

Sarah raised her knife. Only the very tip was touched with blood. She wiped a drop from the tip with her finger and then put her finger in her mouth. She smiled at Blair’s look of disgust and wiped another drop of blood onto a fingertip. She stood, reaching towards Blair. He strained against his restraints but she pushed the finger into his mouth and he tasted the metallic tang of his own blood. 

He tried to bite her finger, but she snatched the hand back, still smiling coldly. 

“How does your pain taste?” she asked. 

“You’re a psycho!” Blair said. 

“So I’ve been told.” She sounded proud of it. She continued her little routine of wiping blood from the blade with her fingers and licking them clean. There was something almost sexual about the way she did it. Blair couldn’t help but wonder if she did this sort of thing for fun with her boyfriend. 

“Look, Blair, just tell us what the writing says,” said Matt. “There’s no need for you to get hurt.” 

This was the most messed up version of good-cop-bad-cop Blair had ever seen. He wasn’t going to fall for it. He kept his mouth pressed shut as Sara dealt another slow cut with her knife. 

This wasn’t too bad, he told himself. He’d been through worse and survived. Just a few cuts. They were shallow, barely bleeding. Hardly life-threatening. He could cope with this until Jim got here. He shut his eyes and pictured Jim’s face as Sara started again. 

Jim would save him. Jim would save him. Jim would save him. 

“Argh!” 

The scream escaped before he could clamp down on it. Sara had pressed her hand against the lines of cuts she’d dealt. The pain was sudden and intense, dropping to a dull throb when she pulled her hand away. Her palm was covered in blood. His blood. 

Blair’s heart beat frantically, from the pain and from the fear of more to come. She could carry on like this all night. The sick bitch took delight in making him bleed. 

She stood again and touched the side of Blair’s face with her bloody palm. The gesture could have been almost romantic except for the sticky redness that clung to his skin. He could smell his own blood, taste it where she danced her fingers across his lips. When Blair tried to turn his head away, she stroked his hair, matting the curls into sticky clumps. 

"This isn't going to get any easier," Matt said. 

Blair could believe that. Sara was just getting started on one part of one leg. She would keep cutting and keep playing with him, building up the pain. 

He tried to shut off those thoughts. They wouldn’t help. Jim would be looking for him. The whole of major crimes was probably looking for him. Someone would get him out of here before it got that bad. 

But no matter how his rational mind tried to keep him calm, he couldn’t still that terrified voice in the back of his mind that wondered how much more of this he could take. What would be his breaking point? 

“I can keep going, you know,” Sara said, almost reading his mind. “You’ve got such nice skin. I can keep going, finish this leg. Play with your feet. You don’t need your toes. I could slice through your Achilles tendon so you can’t run away. And then I could work up, to those precious jewels you were so desperate to protect. Then I can set to work on your chest. I can have a lot of fun without putting those organs at risk. Maybe slice off your nipples. Then I could move on to your hands. You don’t need both of them to write down translations.” 

Blair tried not to listen. His heart was pounding frantically and he tried to focus on the sound of his own blood throbbing in his ears. He didn’t need to hear what Sara had planned. She’d never get that far. Jim would get here long before that. 

He had to. 

“What about it, Blair?” Matt asked. “Will you help us or should Sara keep playing?” 

For half a heartbeat, Blair considered yielding. But he glared between the two captors. 

“I’m not helping you with anything.” 

"I'm sorry to hear that,” Matt said. He stood up and walked for the door of the cell. 

There was a long silence after Matt left. Sara was crouched on the floor in front of Blair, playing with her knife and inspecting her earlier handiwork. That cold smile was frozen on her face as she ran the blade up and down his uninjured leg, gentle as a lover’s touch. 

“Last chance,” she said, her tone teasing. 

“Go to hell,” Blair said, and gritted his teeth against the expected pain. 

The smile faded. Her eyes hardened. 

“Damn you!” 

She stood, shoving the knife roughly into the sheath. She stormed to the door, opening it and slamming it behind her. Blair heard the bolt crashing home as he was locked in again. 

What the hell? 

***

Sara fled the basement. She crossed the kitchen and pounded up the stairs. Someone was calling her name but she barely registered it, diving into the bathroom and slamming the door behind her, driving home the bolt. 

Damn him! 

She leaned back against the door, trembling as her walls crumbled. She didn’t notice her legs giving way until she found herself sitting on the cold tiles, back against the wood of the door. Her senses were filled with blood. The taste. The sight. The scent. The texture. The soft drip onto the hard floor. 

His blood filled every part of her awareness. 

She could think of nothing else. All her senses belonged to him. To his blood. 

With shaking hands she pushed up the long sleeve of her top, revealing the pale skin of her left arm, criss-crossed with fine lines. She reached for the sheath, for her knife, for her lifeline. 

The trembling stopped the moment the tip touched the soft skin below her elbow. A new focus for her sense of touch. It pulled her back into herself, back into the moment. She drew a short line, just a little cut. The pain grounded her. She knew where she was, who she was, why she was. Her head cleared. 

The smell of blood in her nostrils now was her own, familiar, comforting, driving away the experiences in the basement. She centred in on it, watching those little beads of red well up along the cut. 

“Sara? Sara, let me in, damn it. Sara! Sara, open this door. Don’t think I won’t break it down, you know, because I will. Sara? Sara! Are you alright? Sara, please answer me!” 

She became aware of the voice slowly, as she came back to herself. Art had been outside the door, pounding on it, no doubt for as long as she’d been in here. How long had she zoned out for this time? 

She got slowly to her feet, slipping the knife back into its sheet, and slid back the bolt. 

She opened the door. 

Art was standing there. He looked down at the line of red on her arm. 

“Oh, Sara,” he breathed. But it wasn’t the way her parents used to say it, with disappointment, as though she’d let them down again. It was sad with sorrow, yes, but also understanding. He reached out and took her hand, lifting up her arm gently. He leaned forward, like some courtier kissing a lady’s hand in an old story, except he kissed the cut, staining his lips with her blood. 

When he straightened, she leaned forward too, meeting his lips with her own. She tasted her own blood in the kiss, as well as Art’s flavour and the faint traces of pizza and cereal that he’d eaten recently. 

When they broke the kiss, she still leaned into him, wrapping her arms around him. She rested her head against his shoulder, breathing in his scent, feeling his warmth. He was all around her. He was in her. His touch, his taste, his scent, filling her senses with something better. His hands moved in comforting circles on her back. 

“He wouldn’t break,” Sara said. “I could smell how scared he was, hear his heart racing, see it in his eyes. He was terrified but he wouldn’t break. He won’t break, no matter what I do.” 

“Sh, it’s OK,” Art’s hands continued their circles. “I won’t make you go down there again. It’s OK. We’ll think of something else.”


	4. The Fears of Night

Blair had expected to be sliced and diced and subjected to whatever else that psycho bitch thought was fun. Instead, she’d just left him here, taped to the chair. 

He really needed to use the bucket. The recent terror wasn’t helping that at all. 

Was this another mind game? Were they going to leave him to stew in his fear to try and break his spirit? Blair didn’t think so. There was something in the way she’d reacted. She’d been enjoying herself and then suddenly she wasn’t. Suddenly she was angry with Blair for not cooperating. 

What the hell was this about? 

He tried to think of an answer while he wriggled his hands behind his back, hoping to get some slack on the tape. His actions were causing his arm hairs to pull against the glue of the tape, but that was almost a good thing. The self-imposed discomfort gave him some distraction from the throbbing pain of his leg and the drip of blood onto the concrete floor. 

The bolt slid aside and the door opened. 

Blair looked at the new arrival, someone who hadn’t been there at his kidnapping but there was still something familiar about her. She was a black woman, short and thin, so skinny that she looked like a strong breeze might blow her away. The loose shirt she wore over her jeans just made her seem even smaller. There was a sad serious look on her face as she gently closed the door behind her and crossed the room to Blair. She knelt on the floor in front of him and placed a first aid kit down beside the chair. 

“What the hell is going on round here?” Blair asked. 

She opened the plastic box, pulling out a tube of some white paste. She started rubbing it on his leg. The initial pain of her touch quickly faded to blessed numbness. Blair was still staring at her, trying to work out why she seemed so familiar. 

“I know you,” he said. 

She glanced up, briefly, before returning her attention to his injured leg, taking a piece of gauze from the first aid kit to apply over the multiple cuts Sara had dealt. 

“I asked for your help,” she said. “You sent me away.”

The memory surfaced. A few days ago, the woman had turned up at the apartment, saying that she believed Blair about Sentinels. She’d said she had some writings to show him and would like his help with them. He’d told her that he wouldn’t be doing anything to do with Sentinels anymore after the debacle of his dissertation. 

“You kidnapped me because I brushed you off?” 

He’d assumed she’d been a university researcher, another anthropologist. He’d sent her away because having his name associated with her work would be a savage blow to her credibility. He’d been sharp about it because Jim had called him to help with a new murder scene and he’d been in a hurry. He hadn’t seen how desperate she must have been. 

“We didn’t do this on a whim,” she said. “We tried to contact you through the university and they wouldn’t even talk to us. We managed to track down your address but you wouldn’t even listen to me. We tried to get you to cooperate without hurting you, but you were too stubborn.” Her voice was choked, close to tears. “We need your help and you wouldn’t give us a choice.” 

Blair felt like he needed to apologise. That was ridiculous. These people had kidnapped him, tortured him and he still felt like he was the one who’d let someone down. 

“What’s this really about?” Blair asked. 

The woman packed up the first aid kit and walked round the chair. She tore the tape about Blair’s wrists and then walked away. She hesitated at the door, giving one last, pleading look. 

“Please reconsider helping us.” 

Then she let herself out and bolted the door behind her. 

Blair disentangled his wrists from the tape and then tore and peeled at the rest to free himself from the chair. He was left with a mangled mess of used tape that he balled up and dumped under the table. His skin and clothes were sticky in places from the tape’s glue, but he was able to get up from the chair at least and tend to business. 

The pain in his lower leg was a dull throb that pulsed to the beat of his heart, but when he stood it spiked sharply. Each limping step over to the bucket brought a new surge of pain up his limb. But he made it to the bucket and took care of one pressing issue. 

Then he curled himself up on the floor in the opposite corner. The concrete was cold and hard. His folded arm made a lousy pillow. The pain in his leg, though better than earlier, was a constant distraction. Sleep came slowly, disturbed by his confused thoughts. Just who the hell were these people and what were they really after? 

***

Jim had only gone to bed when Rafe had threatened to march him up the stairs at gunpoint. There was nothing they could do until morning and there were uniformed officers patrolling the building and streets outside. Jim was expected to sleep so that he could be awake and alert when they continued the investigation tomorrow. 

They’d started compiling a list of everyone who’d had access to Blair’s book or who’d had reason to be embarrassed when Blair had made his retraction announcement. The list was as long as Rafe had feared. They had to hope they could narrow it down. There had to be some reason why Blair had been targeted now, not when the whole mess had happened. 

Jim knew he should be sleeping but his mind was racing with thoughts and fears. He could hear the silence of the loft. All the sounds he never usually noticed rang in his ears with their absence. There were no faint murmurs of movement as Blair shifted in his lift. No reassuring thump of his heartbeat just on the cusp of hearing. Jim didn’t even have Blair’s scent to reassuring him; the whole place still stank of that over-powering perfume. 

He’d never really noticed how much he relied on Blair until he was gone. 

In the quiet night, Jim longed to hear Blair’s voice, offering advice that seemed equal parts sage and ridiculous. Jim wanted Blair to reach out and touch his arm, telling him to trust in his senses. He wanted to have Blair by his side because he wasn’t sure he was up to the task of finding him on his own. 

Jim stared at the dark ceiling of his bedroom and wondered what he would do if Blair never came home. What if he was dead already?


	5. Daniel

Blair felt he’d barely managed five minutes of sleep together, curled uncomfortably on the cold floor, when the door of his cell opened again. Blair pushed himself into a sitting position, his leg throbbing at the movement. Matt was standing in the doorway, gun in hand. Matt gave the table the briefest of glances, taking in the closed notebook, before he fixed his eyes once more on Blair. 

“Get up,” he ordered. 

Blair did as he was told, leaning against the wall as he stood on his good leg. He hadn’t put his shoes on after the torture yesterday, so the concrete floor was rough against the soles of his feet. 

“Are you going to tell me what’s really going on?” Blair asked. 

“Yes.” 

The answer caught Blair off-guard and he stumbled against the table. Matt didn’t try to tie him up or tape his arms again. Clearly he didn’t think Blair stood much chance of running. Unfortunately, Blair agreed. 

“Move,” Matt said. He stepped sideways to unblock the door and Blair limped through. His leg hurt like hell to walk on, but the wounds were superficial and it supported his weight without any difficulty. He headed through into the rest of the basement, which seemed perfectly ordinary, with a freezer in one corner and storage boxes against the walls. He passed a cardboard box labelled Xmas decorations that was spilling trails of tinsel onto the floor. Hardly what he’d picture as a headquarters for a criminal gang. 

The stairs were a nightmare. Blood had seeped through bandage and trouser leg by the time Blair got to the top. Matt had been walking slowly behind him each step of the way, the gun always trained on his back. Blair didn’t think Matt would kill him but he wouldn’t put it past him to put a bullet in his good leg. 

Others were waiting in the kitchen at the top of the stairs: the overweight guy and the black woman. There was no sign of Sara. After yesterday, Blair was glad of that. He didn’t think he could face looking her in the eye after yesterday’s pain and everything else she’d threatened him with. 

“We’ve had a long talk,” said the overweight guy. “So far, you haven’t been very cooperative, so we’ve decided to show you why we’re doing this. Maybe that way you’ll understand that we won’t stop until we’ve got what we need from you. The sooner you grasp that, the smoother things will go for you.” 

"What's this all about?" Blair asked. 

“This way.” The overweight guy turned and walked through the kitchen door. With a prod from Matt’s gun, Blair followed him. They went into a hallway and up a flight of stairs. This seemed like an ordinary family home, large enough, a little on the shabby side, but normal. Blair limbed up the stairs, using the banister to haul himself upwards rather than put too much weight on his injured leg. At the top of the stairs, doors off the landing gave glimpses of bedrooms and a bathroom. The overweight guy pushed open one of the bedroom doors and walked inside. Blair followed. 

The man on the double bed was probably around Blair's age. He was thin and pale, a faint sheen of sweat on his face. He was sitting, propped against pillows, with his legs pulled up in front of him under the covers. He was mumbling inaudibly, apparently unaware of the visitors to his room. 

But what Blair noticed was the sheet of paper on the bed beside him. Without even looking at the paper, the man was drawing symbols across the page. The overweight guy went across the room and sat down on the bed, reaching out to lay a hand on the other man’s, stopping the frantic scribbling. 

“Daniel, it’s OK, you’re safe. You’re home.” 

Blair glanced around the room. It seemed an ordinary bedroom. There was a chest of drawers by the door, with a photo on top of it of a couple on their wedding day. The man in the picture was so different from the man in the bed, smiling, happy, healthy, that it took Blair a moment to realise it was the same person. Next to the photo was a pile of neatly printed paper. An unbound manuscript. Blair recognised that in a heartbeat. It was the manuscript of his dissertation, opened to a section on spirit visions. Given everything else, Blair wasn’t all that surprised to see the book. 

Matt gave Blair another nudge with the gun and Blair walked further into the room, crossing to the bed. Now that he was closer, he could make out some of Daniel’s mumbling. 

“There’s no tiger in the jungle. I just got lost in the trees. I can’t find the tiger. She needs me.” 

The overweight guy was still trying to sooth him, “It’s OK, Daniel. Beth’s gone where no one can hurt her. She doesn’t need you to protect her anymore.” 

“She needs me. My tiger always needs me.” 

He picked up his pen and started scribbling again, still mumbling about not being able to see the tiger in the jungle. The overweight guy stood, looking at Blair and then gesturing to Matt. 

Blair found himself urged down the stairs again, but only as far as the kitchen. He sat at one of the chairs at the large table, grateful to get the weight off his leg, thinking about the man upstairs. The overweight guy sat down in front of him. 

“His name is Daniel. He’s our friend. About three months ago, Beth, his wife, died suddenly. Daniel was devastated, of course, but it was normal grief. Then, about two months ago, he started having strange dreams of the blue jungle. He kept having nightmares of looking for a tiger and not being able to find her.” 

“The tiger was Beth’s spirit animal,” put in the black woman. 

The overweight guy continued, “It got worse from there. He started seeing the jungle when he was awake and then he just cut off from reality altogether. That’s when the writing started.” 

“And you kidnapped me because you recognised the writing?” 

There was a silence. The three kidnappers exchanged glances before the overweight guy continued. 

“And because Beth was more than just his wife,” he said. “She was his Sentinel.” 

***

Jim had his hearing dialled up to listen to both sides of the conversation while Rafe called the various people on their list trying to determine their whereabouts at the time of the kidnapping. So far, it was slow progress, with most people angry at the call and all it implied. The reason Rafe was making the calls was that Jim was also angry and him losing his temper down the phone wasn’t going to help bring Blair back. They were still in Jim’s apartment, just in case there was a message from the kidnapper. 

“No, you’re not a suspect,” Rafe was saying to the latest call, “but we have reason to suspect that someone from your company was involved and we need to be thorough. Please can you tell me where you were?” 

“I was here,” answered the speaker. “The damn email server crashed because some idiot overloaded it and if we hadn’t got it back online by the start of business today, it would have been my job on the line. So I was here with about half the IT team trying to get the heap of junk working again. Of course, if the boss had given us the budget to upgrade the damn thing, like we’ve been asking him for the past five years, this wouldn’t have happened.” 

Jim could hear the genuine frustration in the man’s tone. It was much harder to judge if someone was lying over the phone than in person, but Jim suspected this rant was the real thing. 

“Could you tell us who else of your team was with you last night?” Rafe went on, when the guy paused for breath. The man listed names and Rafe marked them off on their list. Most of the names had been employed at the time of the dissertation mess. If Rafe could rule half a dozen out in one go, so much the better. 

Rafe thanked this guy for his cooperation and wished him luck with the email problem. Then he hung up the phone and sighed. Not everybody had had such a good alibi, but everyone had given somewhere that they’d been. Out with colleagues, out on a date, hanging out with friends, working late. There were a few who’d said that they’d been home on their own and Rafe had marked those as not having an alibi, but so far no one had said anything remotely suspicious in answer to the questions. 

They'd barely scratched the surface on the list but Jim hadn’t thought of a better idea yet, so Rafe picked up the phone again and continued. 

Three phone calls later, Rafe was told he was being transferred to one of the management team by an employee of the publishing company. 

“Detective,” snapped the voice they were connected to, “I am Albert Spencer and I don’t appreciate Cascade Police harassing my staff. If you have evidence that one of my employees has been involved in some crime, you will have my full cooperation, but so far all I’ve got is a lot of scared people worried that they’re about to be accused of something and they don’t even know what.” 

“Mr Spencer,” said Rafe, “I apologise for the inconvenience. Blair Sandburg has been kidnapped and we have reason to believe there is a connection to the dissertation that your company were looking to publish. We are currently investigating the possibility that one of your staff feels they were made to look foolish and wants to get revenge.” 

“By calling up every secretary and IT tech I employ?” 

“Perhaps, Mr Spencer, you could help us narrow down our search. Is there anyone you can think of who was particularly upset over the incident with Blair Sandburg’s book?” 

There was a brief hesitation before the guy answered. Jim wished he was in the same room so he could get a feel for heart rate or if Spencer was sweating. As it was, he just had the voice to go on. 

“A lot of people were interested in the book, with all the media storm. People wanted a piece of the next big thing. Then Sandburg made his little speech and the company’s credibility took a nosedive. A couple of big clients decided to take their next work elsewhere and it hit us hard. Thankfully, we were able to avoid any redundancies, but it was rough for a while. Still, the publishing industry is very much focused on the moment. Get a bestseller on the shelves and everyone forgets about your last mess. We rode out the storm. I know people who were angry with Sandburg at the time but there were mistakes on both sides and if anyone was going to do anything, I think it would have been then. If you’d called me a couple of years ago and said that someone had punched Sandburg in the street, I’d have believed it, but I can’t believe they’d do anything to him now, after all this time.” 

"Thank you, that's very helpful. But is there anyone in particular who had a specific interest in the book?” 

“Like I said, everyone was interested, from the board to directors to that Art kid.” 

“Who?” Rafe asked. 

“Arthur something, Cartwell, I think.” 

Rafe flipped through the pages of the list. The name wasn’t there. 

“Is he an employee?” 

“Not an employee. He was an intern. Good kid, but a bit weird. Really into all that hocus pocus mystical crap. When the Sentinel book hit the desks, he was all over it. Swallowed every word like it was the Bible. When Sandburg pulled the plug, Art still believe it all and thought we should publish the book anyway. I think he even kept a copy of the manuscript when everyone else trashed it.” 

Jim was sitting forward in his seat, listening to every word. Rafe very carefully wrote the name Arthur Cartwell onto his list. 

“Do you think Arthur could be involved in Sandburg’s kidnap?” Rafe asked. 

“God no!” Spencer declared. “He was a good kid. I don’t even know if he’s still in the State; we sent enough reference letters out when he applied to college that he could be anywhere. Besides, he idolised Sandburg, even after the guy trashed his own reputation.” 

“Well, thank you for your help,” Rafe said. He hung up the phone and looked at Jim, “Are we looking at an idol/stalker situation or do you think this Arthur is pissed that Sandburg never went public with the book?” 

“I don’t know,” Jim answered, “but I want to find out a bit more about Arthur Cartwell.”


	6. Camomile Tea

Blair had demanded answers. That had been the bargain. He’d refused to help them when they’d tortured him but he’d offered everything in exchange for truth. They were sitting at the kitchen table. Sara was still absent. When asked, they’d said she was keeping an eye on Daniel, but Blair hadn’t missed the glances that passed between them before they’d said it. 

Blair had a couple of slices of toast in front of him but, despite the growling hunger in his stomach, he barely noticed the food as he listened to them talk. He had names for them all now. Matt and Sara he already knew and apparently those names had been their real ones. The overweight guy was Art, short for Arthur. The black woman was Olivia. They’d been drawn together because of who they were, because they were different and they’d recognised themselves in each other. 

Blair looked at Matt. 

“You’re a Sentinel.” It wasn’t a question but he nodded anyway. “And Sara?” 

“Yes,” Art answered. “She’s my Sentinel.” 

Blair noted the pronoun, “You’re her Guide?” 

Another nod from Art. Matt reached out and laid a hand on Olivia’s shoulder, showing without words the connection there. And Daniel’s Sentinel had been his wife. Three couples, paired up Sentinel and Guide. If things had been different, Blair would have loved to play the anthropologist and analyse what it meant that they’d all formed romantic attachments to their partners. But there were other things to worry about, like the fact that a Guide was going slowly nuts without his Sentinel. 

“You found out about me because of my dissertation?” Blair asked. 

Art nodded, “I was doing an internship at the publishing company. I got hold of a copy of your manuscript and it was like the Bible. It was everything we’d ever needed.” 

“We learned a lot from you,” said Olivia, leaning forwards. “So much, we’d had to figure out on our own and there it was in print from your experiences and your studies. Everything we’d struggled with, we knew you’d gone through too.” 

"When my heightened senses first made themselves known,” Matt said, “I thought I was going nuts. I was hearing things, seeing things, smelling things. I was afraid to go to doctors because I was sure they’d lock me up. So I just kept everything hidden, pretending to be normal. It got better when I met Olivia. She helped me to keep things under control but we didn’t know what was going on. Olivia was the one who convinced me to go to the hospital to be checked out. That’s where we met Beth.” 

Olivia and Matt were holding hands on the surface of the kitchen table, gentle reassurance in a simple touch. Blair saw her circling her fingers on his skin, keeping him grounded with his sense of touch. It was both a romantic gesture and an act of a Guide holding her Sentinel’s powers in check. 

She continued the story, “Beth was a doctor and a brilliant one at that. She’d figured out a lot of her abilities by herself and used them to help with her work. When Matt described his… symptoms, she recognised them instantly. She had us meet with her and Daniel outside of the hospital and we just… talked.” 

"It made all the difference in the world to know that I wasn’t alone,” Matt went on. “There was someone else who was like me, even if she was just as confused as to why. But even after Art and Sara joined us, we didn’t have answers. I thought it had been tough for me but with Sara.” 

Art shot him a look. Matt fell silent instantly. Blair was left looking between the two of them, wondering what had been left unsaid. Then Matt cleared his throat and continued talking. 

“We didn’t have any answers. Then Art came home with your book. Suddenly, we knew where we came from. We knew what we could do and there, in the pages, were documented cases of someone else struggling with these powers and taking them to heights we never dreamed possible.” 

“We learned everything we could from your book,” Art said, “and when Daniel started talking about the jungle in his dreams, we figured it was the spirit plane. But we don’t know how to deal with this.” 

Blair felt scared, more scared than he’d felt when Sara was cutting him. They were looking at him like he had all the answers. They expected him to just walk into the situation and make their friend better. He wasn’t sure how to admit that he didn’t have a clue what was going on. This was nothing like anything that had ever happened with Jim. 

He ran a hand over his face, thinking rapidly. All those bits of paper in the basement had been talking about being lost in the jungle, which matched with Daniel’s mumblings, but they’d that the Sentinel was lost, not the Guide. Blair wished he could see what was going on inside Daniel’s head. His spirit had occasionally connected with Jim’s in the spirit realm, but not like this. 

He felt the weight of everyone's stares. He tried to think of something, anything, that might help. 

“Shamans sometimes led people on spirit journeys,” Blair said slowly, “guiding them through the spiritual plane.” 

"Can you guide Daniel?” Art asked. 

“I can try.” 

“What do you need?” Olivia asked. 

Blair tried to remember what he’d read, “There are a lot of tribes who use hallucinogens to free the mind from the physical world and make it easier to traverse the spirit, but I’m not sure if they would be necessary or sensible given Daniel’s current state. Perhaps if you’ve got a relaxant of some kind, that would help transition into a sort of dream state. There are certain herbs and teas that might work.” 

“We got camomile,” Olivia said doubtfully. 

Blair had never heard of anyone going on a vision quest aided by camomile tea, but he was nothing if not adaptable. Besides, he lost nothing in making the attempt. 

“I’ll give it a go. If it doesn’t work, we can get something else from a herbalist. The other useful thing would be some drumming. There are certain rhythms which set up a harmony with internal energy flows and make it easier to connect with your spiritual side.” 

“We’ve got a tape of Native American drumming,” Art said. Blair looked surprised so Art explained, “It was in the book.” 

This was the first time Blair had considered what his book might mean to other Sentinels. He’d never considered another Sentinel or Guide reading his book and repeating things he’d done with Jim over the years. 

Olivia put the kettle on and made a pot of camomile tea while Art fetched the tape of drumming. Matt took Blair upstairs again to prepare for this with Daniel. Minutes later, Blair was sitting cross-legged on Daniel’s bed, trying to explain what he was about to attempt. Daniel seemed half in the spirit world already, so he wasn’t sure how much sank in. When Olivia came up with two mugs of tea, Blair drank his slowly while she helped Daniel. Art had started off the drumming tape, a rhythm that wove back and forth between two drummers, each keeping their own timing that sometimes clashed and sometimes came in sync. Blair let himself feel the drumming as well as hear it, feeling the beat resonate with the beat of his heart. 

He handed his mug to someone and reached out for Daniel's hands. Blair closed his eyes allowed himself to sink into a meditative state, but maintained awareness of the man in front of him. He felt like he was floating downwards, slipping into darkness, but he kept his hands holding Daniel’s. All other sensations faded and the drumming became just a background in his mind. 

When Blair opened his eyes, he was still holding Daniel’s hands but they were somewhere else. They stood in a jungle, the air tinged blue. Blair knew that this was the spirit plane. He looked about, but saw only trees and bushes, there were no animals. 

Daniel was standing beside him, looking more like the young man in the wedding photo than the invalid in the bed. He was strong and healthy, but clearly not at peace. Daniel was frantically peering between branches, hunting with his eyes and getting more agitated when he didn’t see what he was looking for. Blair placed one hand on Daniel’s shoulder, trying to for calming. 

“I can’t see her!” Daniel said. 

"It's OK, Daniel, don’t worry.” 

“But I need to find Beth’s tiger.” 

Daniel pulled away from him, pushing through dense foliage. He struggled through the jungle, calling out for Beth. She didn’t answer. She wasn’t there to answer. Blair pushed behind, fighting past thick branches and getting caught on tangling bushes. This place felt far too real for a spirit landscape. Branches scratched at his skin with very real pain, but at least his leg seemed whole in this plane. 

“Daniel, listen to me,” Blair managed to catch up and grabbed Daniel’s hand again. “Listen to me! Beth is gone.” 

Daniel paused amid the trees, staring away from Blair. There was a long silence. Then Daniel’s shoulders gradually started to shake with silent sobs. 

“I saw Beth’s body,” Daniel said. “I know she’s dead, but I can hear her calling to me.” 

Blair listened. He heard the wind in the trees. 

“I don’t hear her,” he said. 

“She’s… inside me. My Sentinel needs me.” 

Blair thought rapidly, trying to fit the pieces of this puzzle together. Beth was dead, definitely. Daniel had seen her body so there was no doubt in any of their minds. But he felt the pull of a Sentinel in need? 

He remembered the writings, the pieces he’d managed to translate. A Sentinel is lost without a Guide. Daniel was trying to find a lost Sentinel; he recognised the cries of distress through the spirit plane. A thought occurred. 

“Daniel,” Blair asked, “are you sure that it’s Beth who’s calling to you?” 

Daniel looked confused, “It’s my Sentinel calling.” 

“What if there’s another Sentinel out there?”


	7. Stand Off

Jim was back at his desk in Cascade police department. He’d barely slept and it was an effort to keep his eyes focused on the computer screen as he tried to track down Arthur Cartwell. There was no criminal record, but Jim was able to pursue other avenues. He found an address in the suburbs of Cascade and discovered that Arthur was a student at Rainer. Jim got hold of an academic transcript that was an eclectic mix, contrasting courses on anthropology and archaeology with ones on computer programming and electrical engineering. From the grades listed, Arthur certainly had the skills to build the perfume bomb. 

Jim wanted to head over there right away but his rational mind still had control over his fear for his friend. He didn’t have a warrant. He didn’t have evidence. He didn’t even have enough to convince a DA that Arthur Cartwell was a suspect. All he had was the fact that Arthur had been interested in Blair’s book two years ago and that he had got top marks in an electrical engineering course. Besides, this wasn’t even Jim’s case. He had to do this the right way, even if he kept imagining all manner of horrible things that might be happening to Blair. 

So he forced himself to sit and stare at his computer screen while he waited for Rafe and the others to get into work. Rafe was in early, crossing the bullpen to Jim’s desk. 

“Did you sleep at all last night?” Rafe asked. 

“Maybe an hour,” Jim answered, then showed Rafe everything he’d found. 

Rafe was as doubtful as Jim had expected. 

“This is all very tenuous,” he said. 

“I’m not saying we arrest the guy,” Jim said. “I just think it’s worth talking to him.” 

Rafe flipped through Jim’s research for a moment, considering, but he yielded. 

“Fine, but I’m driving. You look like you might fall asleep on the steering wheel.” 

Jim didn't argue because it finally felt that he was doing something useful in the hunt for Blair, however slim the odds might be. He sat in the passenger seat of Rafe’s car as they drove out towards the listed address. Jim needed this to work. He needed to have Blair safe and alive beside him. Going out on a case with Rafe felt wrong, his presence just making Blair’s absence more acute. The worried thought rose up again that Jim wouldn’t be able to cope if Blair was gone for good. He forced that thought down, locking it away because he refused to deal with that possibility unless he had to. Right now, he was working on the assumption that Blair was alive because to do anything else was too painful. 

“Ellison! Are you even listening to me?” 

Jim snapped his attention to Rafe. It felt like coming out of a zone-out, suddenly being aware of the world around him. Except, this time he’d been zoned out on his fears rather than his senses. They’d finished the drive and Rafe had parked his car on a street of houses that had once probably been rather grand. They were all quite large, but most now had a dishevelled look, with peeling paint and overgrown gardens. The cars parked on driveways were not the newest models. 

“Sorry, what?” Jim said. 

Rafe sighed, “I was saying that we’re going to do this by the book and you’re going to follow my lead. You’re angry, upset and tired. In your current state, you’re liable to make a mistake. I’ll talk to this Arthur guy. You just pay attention to anything I might miss.” 

Jim nodded. Rafe probably had a point. They didn’t need any problems if Jim lost his temper and it turned out he was wrong about this guy. 

A sound on the edge of hearing caught his notice. Jim dialled up that sense and focused in without even realising he was doing it. 

“What’s this about?” Blair’s voice asked. 

"Jim!" Rafe's voice was like a foghorn in Jim's ear. Jim snapped his attention back, his hearing dialling back instinctively to protect him. He realised he had the car door half-open and that Rafe had grabbed hold of his arm. Jim hadn’t even noticed that he was trying to get out of the car. 

“Blair’s here,” Jim said. 

“Are you sure?” 

"I heard him." 

Rafe reached under his jacket to check his gun his shoulder holster. 

“We’re still doing this my way,” Rafe said. “Got it?” 

Jim dialled up his hearing again, but he didn’t hear Blair’s voice anymore. He heard other noises. People in the houses were getting ready for work, or doing chores. A vacuum cleaner roared, music blared, dogs barked and a baby cried. Cars in the other streets added their background to the chaos. Beside him, Rafe was trying to talk to him again but Jim filtered it all out, hunting for Blair in the madness. His voice was nowhere to be found. 

He heard other voices, talking rapidly and agitated. 

“Art, what about the writings?” a woman asked. 

“There’s no time,” a man’s voice replied. “Ellison’s right outside.” 

“They know we’re here,” Jim told Rafe. He was out of the car and walking along the street towards the house, towards the sounds of the voices. His gun was in his hand. He didn’t remember taking it from the holster. 

“Damn it, Jim!” Rafe got out of the car, getting his own gun ready. 

Jim could identify the right house easily enough, though it looked much like the others on the street. The front windows were all blocked by curtains and blinds. A white van was parked on a drive of gravel and weeds. He reached the edge of the property just as the door opened. 

For one glorious moment, Jim saw Blair and the world seemed perfect. Then he saw the tape over Blair’s mouth and the gun aimed at his head. Blair’s arms were pulled behind him, no doubt restrained, and he was being gripped tightly by a large man, who held himself with military bearing. The man didn’t match the images Jim had managed to find for Art, so there were clearly other players here. 

“Put your gun down, detective,” said the man holding Blair. 

Jim realised then that his gun was pointed at the man’s head. He hadn’t even noticed. He’d just seen Blair in danger and reacted. 

“Let Blair go,” Jim countered. 

“Even if you get a perfect shot,” the man said, “I might twitch my finger when I die and your partner’s brains still get splattered across the neighbourhood. I don’t think you’re going to risk that.” 

The man took a step out of the doorway, hauling Blair with him. Jim couldn’t miss the look of pain that filled Blair’s features at that step. There was blood on Blair’s trousers. 

Jim heard voices inside the house, someone trying to usher someone else outside. The someone else seemed to be talking about tigers. A small, black woman squeezed out of the door behind Blair’s captor. She had a bag in her arm and keys in her hand. She headed for the white van. 

“Don’t move!” the calm order came from Rafe, who stood beside Jim and who was considerably calmer about the situation. He was aiming the gun at the woman, but she didn’t seem to care. 

“If you shoot, I shoot,” said the guy holding Blair. 

Blair was trying to talk, the tape over his mouth turning everything into meaningless noise. He was staring straight at Jim, trying desperately to speak, but even Sentinel abilities couldn’t turn the muffled noises into speech. He could have been telling Jim to shoot anyway or begging him to stop. So Jim remained frozen, gun aimed, while the woman continued to the van. She opened the back doors and threw the bag in, then went to the driver’s seat. 

“Let Sandburg go before kidnapping becomes murder,” Rafe said. 

"Nobody has to die here," said the captor. 

More people were coming out of the house. A fat guy, who Jim recognised from the photos as Arthur, was ushering another man through the door and towards the van. The other man was the one rambling about tigers, saying something about someone not being able to find them if they left. A young woman followed them out. She had a knife in her hand. She didn’t make a move towards the van. Instead, she stood beside Blair and put her knife against his side. Blair tried to pull away, but he was held vast in the man’s arms. 

“Put your guns down,” she said, “or I’ll start cutting.” 

Her voice was cold, her eyes hard. There was something not quite right in the way she spoke, something that reached deep into Jim and triggered some primal fear. He was quick willing to believe that this woman would murder Blair. 

“If you hurt him,” Jim said, “I’ll kill you.” 

“Put the guns down,” she said again. Then she started counting down from ten. At eight, she started moving the knife, a slow slice. At seven, the fabric of Blair’s shirt frayed away from the edges of the knife. At six, a line of red began to show on the blade and a hiss of pain made it through the tape on Blair’s mouth. At five, Jim put the gun down. At four, so did Rafe. 

The young woman smiled, look of cold triumph that Jim longed to wipe off her face with a punch. She moved her knife away from Blair’s side, but only a little. She could have it back there any moment if it was needed. Jim found it hard to drag his eyes off that little line of red. It was a shallow cut, but Jim couldn’t help but fear what else they might have done to him. 

The trio started moving towards the van, the man still holding his gun at Blair’s head, the woman still holding her knife ready. Jim was calculating options. Could he grab his gun and take out the both of them before Blair got hurt? Unlikely. 

Blair was limping badly. There was blood on his trousers and Jim caught a whiff of anti-septic from him. Jim wanted to rush them, to grab Blair and pull him out of their hold. But they had the upper hand. They knew Jim wouldn’t risk Blair. So they reached the back of the van and started hauling Blair inside as the engine roared to life. 

“Let Blair go,” Jim said. He hated the way it came out sounding like begging. 

“Sorry,” said the man. “We still need him.” 

He kept his gun in place as the woman reached out to close the doors. At the last instant, he brought the gun round and fired towards the two cops. 

Jim dropped to the ground, grabbing his own gun and looking up as the van sped off the drive and into the road. 

“One shot from the cop and stick the knife in Sandburg’s gut,” Jim heard someone say. 

Jim grabbed Rafe’s wrist just before Rafe attempted to shoot out the van’s tire. 

“They’ll kill Blair,” Jim said. He turned for Rafe’s van, intending on pursuit. Then he saw what the man had fired at. He’d managed a perfect shot on one of Rafe’s tires. 

They’d gone. They’d taken Blair and Jim couldn’t follow. 

Jim sank down onto the gravel, aware of how monumentally he’d screwed up. Blair had needed his help and Jim had just stood there.


	8. Without a Plan

Blair struggled against the tape that once again wrapped around his wrists. Blair knew that Matt wasn’t about to shoot him, but he hadn’t been able to get that across to Jim. Even as the van pulled away, Art said things intended for Sentinel ears to pick up, to prevent Jim from following. With tape across his mouth, Blair couldn’t tell Jim that Sara wasn’t about to stab him. All he could was struggle and glare across the back of the van at the others. 

He wasn’t scared. Even when Sara had started cutting him again, he hadn’t been scared. He was furious. They’d used his book against him. They knew that Jim would do anything to protect him and they’d played on that. They knew about Jim’s abilities from the book and they’d played on that too. The look of terror on Jim’s face as the van’s doors closed had been heart-breaking and these people had used his own writing to put it there. 

With his good leg, Blair kicked across the van and slammed his bare heel against Art’s shin. 

Art gave a noise that was more of surprise than of pain. Sara leapt across the van and had a hand around Blair’s throat. 

“Don’t you dare hurt him,” she hissed into his face. Art caught her hand, drawing her back to his side. She sat back down on the bench beside him, their fingers woven together. 

“I’m alright,” he said. 

Blair made another attempt to speak through the tape on his mouth, still glaring at his kidnappers. 

“We’ll be out of range of his hearing now,” Matt said. He moved to sit beside Blair and pulled the tape from his face. The loops around his wrists remained, pinning Blair’s arms behind his back. Matt made no move to free him from that. 

“We could have just talked to Jim,” Blair said. 

“He’d have arrested us,” Art pointed out. Sara’s fingers tightened against his, her knuckles white. 

“Maybe you should have thought of that before you kidnapped me.” 

“How the hell did he find us that quickly?” Matt asked. 

“He’s a detective,” Blair said, “and he’s extremely good at his job. He’s not going to give us, you know. He’ll keep following me and you threatening to stab and shoot me will only make him angrier.” 

“We just have to keep ahead of him long enough to help Daniel,” Art said. 

“And how long will that take?” Matt asked. “We’re all at risk here.” 

“So you’re saying we should just forget about helping one of us?” 

“Of course not! I’m just saying that putting a gun to a Guide’s head in front of his Sentinel could flip Ellison from trying to find us to trying to kill us.” 

Blair didn’t point out that maybe Matt should have thought of that before he’d used Blair as a hostage. He suspected that a large part of the stress in Matt’s voice came from knowing that Jim would target him as a threat to Blair. 

Blair was still confused by the dynamics of this little group. It seemed like Art was the one who made the plans and called the shots, despite being one of the youngest. It had been Art who’d rounded up the others and who’d told them, through gestures so that Jim wouldn’t hear, to use Blair as a hostage for their escape. 

Now the others were looking to Art. Blair thought he recognised the look on the young man’s face. It was the same look he was sure he’d worn when he realised that all these people were depending on him and he didn’t have a clue what to do. Art was a step away from panicking, doing whatever he could to keep his little family together and safe, but without any sort of plan of how to get out of the mess he’d got them into. 

***

Jim walked through the house, following Blair’s scent to where it was strongest. He found the little cell in the basement, the air traced with Blair’s sweat. The sour stink of urine came from a bucket in the corner and a metallic tang drew Jim’s attention to a few brownish, red spots on the floor beside the table. Jim felt tension form a tight knot in his stomach. 

He forced himself to look away from the spots of blood and take in the rest of the room, what little there was of it. In their rush to leave, no one had bothered to clear the table of the papers that were strewn across the surface. Jim recognised the symbols instantly, as Blair must have. He saw the symbol for Sentinel staring up at him from page after page. The knot of tension was joined by a sick feeling of guilt. They were interested in Blair because they were interested in Sentinels. Blair wouldn’t be in this situation if it weren’t for Jim. 

He flicked through the pages, hoping there was some answer in there. Scribbles talked about a Sentinel being lost, about fear, about needing a Guide. He felt as though most of this could be speaking directly to him. He desperately needed his Guide with him now. 

“Jim?” Rafe called out. 

“Down here,” Jim yelled back. 

Rafe joined him in the cell, taking in the scene and noticing the blood splatters on the floor. 

“We can get forensics in here,” Rafe said, “and see if we can get a blood type match off the blood. See if it’s Sandburg’s.” 

“It’s his,” Jim said, with absolute certainty. “They’ve been torturing him in here.” 

“We don’t know that for sure.” 

“I know,” Jim said. 

“How?” 

“It’s cold in here.” 

“Huh?” 

Jim sighed and explained his logic, “I can smell Sandburg’s sweat. It can’t be from the temperature. It's not likely to be exercise in a room like this. So it’s from pain and fear. They were torturing him.” 

Rafe reached out and put a hand on Jim's shoulder. Jim shrugged it off. It wasn’t the right hand. It wasn’t the hand he desperately needed to feel right now. 

"What did you find?" Jim asked. 

“A study, and someone is bordering OCD when it comes to keeping records. We’ve got mortgage statements, bank statements, pay slips, utility bills. We should be able to get a pretty accurate view of the people who live here.” 

“Good. That will help with figuring out where they’d go.” 

“There’s something else you should see,” Rafe said. He hadn’t disturbed anything in the house, waiting until forensics could arrive to document everything, so he led Jim upstairs to where he’d found whatever was interesting him. 

“Looks like you were right,” Rafe said. He showed Jim into a bedroom and pointed out the manuscript lying open. Blair’s dissertation.


	9. The Facility

They pulled into the parking lot of a megastore on the outskirts of Cascade. Olivia and Matt disappeared inside to get supplies: food, water, new dressings for Blair’s leg. Then they had a brief discussion in the back of the van about what to do next. 

Daniel was acting strangely again. Not that Blair was able to tell what was normal for him. Still, he’d stopped talking about tigers and appeared to be looking at something. His face was turned away from the others and his eyes were fixed on the distance, despite the fact he was facing nothing but the interior of the van. The others noticed. It was Art who reached out a hand, almost afraid to touch Daniel, and rested it on his arm gently. 

“Daniel?” 

“We should follow the hawk,” Daniel said. Everyone else was looking at the van wall, failing to see the hawk and then shrugging in confusion at the others. 

“I think he’s still seeing the spirit plane,” Blair said. “Is the hawk Daniel’s spirit animal?” 

“No. His animal’s a monkey.” 

“Then maybe the hawk is the Sentinel who he’s hearing in his dreams.” 

"So we follow an imaginary hawk and we can find the Sentinel?” asked Matt. 

“If you didn’t want my advice, maybe you shouldn’t have kidnapped me.” 

There was a drawn out pause while the others considered this, then Art suggested that maybe another vision quest was the answer. There was a little coffee shop inside the megastore, so Olivia left the van briefly and returned with cups of tea. 

“They didn’t have camomile,” she said, “but the tea bags for this one were labelled relax.” 

“So we used camomile as a substitute,” Matt said, “and now we’ve got a substitute for that? What could possibly go wrong?” 

Olivia shot him a look as she handed over a cup to Blair, whose hands were now freed from their tape. Blair drank, while Sara encouraged Daniel to drink his tea. The drum tape had been left behind when they’d fled the house, so Art and Olivia supplied the music, crouching down to slap against the floor of the van. It produced a faint drumming sound that soon settled into a strange rhythm, the two instinctively finding the pattern that called out to their internal harmonies. The two Sentinel’s waited as inconspicuously as possible for the Guides to come together. 

Blair closed his eyes and reached out for Daniel’s hand, letting his mind go blank as he sank into a meditative state. The drum beats faded away until he found himself once again in the blue jungle. 

Daniel, the healthier, spirit-version of him, stood in the clearing, looking up into the branches of the trees. Blair followed his gaze, seeing the hawk perched on a high branch. 

“You were right,” Daniel said. “It wasn’t Beth I was hearing. It was her.” 

“Another Sentinel,” Blair said. He knew. He didn’t have a clue about who the hawk was in human form, but he knew in this place of spirits that it was a Sentinel’s animal form he was seeing. 

“It was unclear in the house, surrounded by Beth’s memories. The two kept mingling and I got confused.” 

Blair couldn’t hear the cry of the hawk, but he felt it. It filled him with confusion, fear, panic, grief, all jumbled together in a chaos of emotion. He felt those emotions but he was detached from them and knew that they weren’t his. The hawk, whoever he or she was, was suffering, crying out in spirit for someone to help. Blair wasn’t sure if Daniel had been able to hear because his spirit had been crying out in grief for his wife, or because it was his destiny to guide this other Sentinel. He said as much. 

Daniel wrenched his eyes from the hawk to glare at Blair. 

“I’m not going to guide another Sentinel!” 

“Why not?” 

“Because Beth was my Sentinel. My love, my wife, the other half of my spirit. I can’t just replace her with someone else. I can’t just become some other Sentinel’s Guide while my wife’s body is barely cold in the ground.” 

“I’m not saying you forget your wife. I’d never say that. But someone else is in pain. Surely it’s honouring your wife’s memory to use what you’ve learned guiding her to heal another’s pain?” 

Daniel turned away from Blair, looking back towards the bird. After a few moments, the first tear blinked free of his eyes. 

“She always was a healer, my Beth. Maybe her spirit is guiding me to this lost soul because she can’t bear to hear the hawk in pain.” 

“Maybe. I don’t know.” 

“I don’t know either. Beth guided me as much as I ever guided her. I don’t know what I’m meant to do without her.” 

"Do what you think is right,” Blair suggested. 

Daniel stood a little longer, then raised his hand to his face to wipe away the tears. 

“We have to find her.” 

Blair put a hand on Daniel’s shoulder to give a reassuring squeeze. 

“I’ll help you,” Blair said. “I promise.” 

***

Jim was back at his desk, going over the paperwork Rafe had found, trying to piece together a picture of the group who’d kidnapped Blair. They’d questioned a few of the neighbours, who all agreed that the group were nice and quiet and kept to themselves. When Jim had asked why they’d all lived together, people had shrugged and commented about house prices and the economy. The assumption was that they were living in that house together simply so that they could afford it. Going through the paperwork, Jim suspected otherwise. Yes, Arthur had the usual stack of student loans and Jim couldn’t find any pay slips for one of the women, but the others had no reason to house-share. 

The house had been jointly owned by a Daniel and Beth Aldridge. Beth had died a few months ago and now Daniel owned the house outright. Beth had been a doctor, Daniel contracted as a web developer and there were no mortgage payments, so the two of them should have been set from a money standpoint. 

Of the others, Jim found that Matt Arling was ex-army and now worked as a chick sexer. Jim had no idea what that meant, but apparently it was well-paid. Olivia Creed worked in HR for a large bank. There had been photos around the flat that meant Jim could match up faces with paperwork, but he still had no idea about the younger woman, the one who’d threatened Sandburg with the knife. 

It made his blood boil just to think about it. He kept seeing the memory of the blood welling up as she sliced through his skin. Jim wanted to find her and rip her apart with his bare hands. 

“Jim!” Jim hadn’t even noticed Rafe walking up. He’d been zoning out more and more since Blair had been taken. He didn’t even need to be focused on one of his senses anymore. 

“What have you got?” Jim asked. 

“Got an ID for that other woman. Sara Hazel Greenwood, nineteen years old. Escaped eighteen months ago from a psychiatric facility.” Rafe dropped the print out of the photo on Jim’s desk. It was the same person. Even with a photo that was out of date, Jim knew this was the person who’d hurt Blair. 

“Psychiatric facility?” 

“I think we should check it out.” 

Rafe insisted on driving. Given his current state, Jim didn’t feel he could argue. He wanted to blame his mental gaps on tiredness and worry, but he was concerned there was something more to it. He’d start thinking about Blair and then realise that several minutes had passed without him being aware of his surroundings. He longed to ask Blair about this, but he wasn’t here to be asked. 

The psychiatric hospital was more pleasant than Jim had expected. There was a high fence around the facility but, once passed the security gate, he saw an expanse of gardens leading up to a large, brick building. It could have been a hotel or something, if it weren’t for the bars across most of the upstairs windows. Wandering the paths of the gardens were presumably the patients, many in pyjamas and dressing gowns. A few members of staff in white scrubs were either helping individual patients or carefully watching the collective in case of incidents. 

The reception area was again styled to look like a smart hotel, with potted plants in the corners and abstract paintings on the walls. The effect was spoiled for Jim but the underlying scent of disinfectant and chemicals that reminded him with every breath that this was a hospital. 

When Rafe said that they wanted to talk about Sara Greenwood, they were invited to wait in a couple of comfortable chairs beside the reception desk. A little while later, a Dr Stinson appear to invite them back into a pleasant office. 

“Obviously, I can’t discuss much of the specifics of Miss Greenwood’s case for confidential reasons,” Dr Stinson said, “but I would like to do what I can to help find her. She really needs to be in a specialist facility where we can see to her needs.” 

“Do you think she’s a danger?” Rafe asked. 

“To herself,” Dr Stinson said. “Miss Greenwood self-harms. She was admitted to this hospital after what her parents believed was a suicide attempt.” 

“You don’t think so?” Jim asked. 

Dr Stinson hesitated, obviously considering the conflict between patient confidentiality and the need to find a sick girl. 

“She cut herself because she said it was the only way to control the feelings,” he said at last. 

“Feelings?” asked Rafe. “As in emotions? Depression?” 

“Nothing like that. Miss Greenwood suffers from multi-sensory hallucinations. She would see things, say she could hear people talking when they were rooms away. She would claim her food tasted wrong and panic that people were trying to poison her.” 

Jim had a sudden memory of kicking off a fuss in the middle of a crowded restaurant for exactly that reason. It was when his Sentinel senses had first come online and he didn’t know how to deal with it. 

“It’s always tragic to see such an extreme case with one so young,” Dr Stinson said, “and Miss Greenwood really needs to be back where she can get professional help to treat her condition.” 

“If it’s so serious, how was she able to get out?” Rafe asked. 

“We’re not a high-security facility, detective. Someone cut out power and, during the confusion, others broke in and got Miss Greenwood out. They used tranquilisers to disable two members of staff. It’s all in the police reports we made at the time.” 

Rafe pulled out photographs that they’d taken from the house where Blair had been held. 

“Do you recognise any of these people?” 

Dr Stinson flicked through the photos, shaking his head as he did so. Then he paused, pulling one from the stack and staring at it more closing. 

“This is Art,” he said. At Rafe’s encouragement, he continued, “He came here about three years ago as part of a volunteering project his school were running. He volunteered for a couple of months and he formed a friendship with Miss Greenwood. When the project ended, he still came by now and again to visit her. His company seemed to calm her and it’s good for patients to continue social interactions if they’re to return to a normal life, so we let him visit. Do you think he was involved in breaking her out?” 

“Possibly,” Rafe admitted. “We know that the two of them are part of the group we’re looking for.” 

They asked a few more questions but got little that would help them track down either Sara Greenwood or Blair. So the two detectives excused themselves and headed out for Rafe’s car. 

“Sara’s a Sentinel,” Jim said as they got there. 

“You can’t know that.” 

“I’m pretty sure. All that stuff about food tasting wrong and hearing people rooms away, I’ve been through that. When my senses first came online, I thought I was hallucinating. If she went through what I went through, it’s no wonder people thought she was crazy.” 

“You really believe that another Sentinel grabbed Sandburg?” 

“It would explain the interest in him. He knows more about Sentinels than anyone. It also explains how they knew we were there when we went to the house.” 

Rafe swore under his breath. 

He put the car into drive and they were on their way again. Jim gave one last look to the facility and the patients wandering the lawn and paths. If he hadn’t met Blair, is this where he’d have ended up? If he hadn’t learned the truth about being a Sentinel, he might have continued to believe he was going nuts. It was a worrying thought, but one Jim couldn’t dismiss. 

He also couldn’t help but wonder if there were other Sentinels out there, stuck in mental facilities because no one understood what was really happening to them.


	10. Choice

They followed the hawk. Daniel sat up in the front of the van with Olivia and Matt. He kept looking in the same direction. All they had to do was drive in the closest direction. They got on the freeway heading out of the city, stopping only to fill up the gas tank, but they didn’t know how far they had to go. Daniel could only tell them that the Sentinel’s call was getting louder. 

Blair was stuck in the back with Art and Sara. He wasn’t too happy about this arrangement. The two of them were being pretty couply again. Sara was looking somewhat agitated. She kept rubbing a hand against her side, about the same place where she’d cut Blair earlier. 

Under other circumstances, Blair might have enjoyed observing the behaviour of Sentinels and Guides, widening his pool of reference. It was interesting that he witnessed nothing of the territorial instincts that Jim had shown when Alex first turned up. Maybe it was because Jim had somehow sensed Alex was a threat while these Sentinels respected each other as allies. 

He was more intrigued by the pairings between Sentinels and their Guides. Burton’s writings had mentioned that Sentinel’s usually had someone with them and Blair had on occasion sensed a mystical element to his relationship with Jim, but this was evidence of a deeper pattern. A Sentinel without a Guide is lost, was what the scribbles had said. Maybe every Sentinel needed someone to partner with, the way Blair had partnered up with Jim. Maybe that was why Alex had ended up so screwed up; she’d been trying to make sense of it all alone. 

The thing that struck Blair now was that the partnerships between these others were all romantic. Sara and Art were clearly an item, as were Matt and Olivia. Daniel had been married to Beth. It made Blair wonder about his own relationship with Jim. There’d never been anything romantic between them. They were friends, roommates, partners, but never an item. Yet Blair knew that Jim mattered more to him than any girlfriend he’d ever had. Faced with the sight of Sara and Art playing footsie on the other bench of the van, Blair couldn’t help but wonder. What if? What if he added another element to his relationship with Jim? 

When Daniel fell asleep on the front seat, Matt pulled the van over in a parking area just off the road. They could all do with a rest, so Blair tried to sleep on the floor of the van, with the night’s chill working its way inside and nothing to use as a pillow. He lay for a long time, exhausted but too uncomfortable to sleep. When he finally started to dose off, his circling thoughts twisted themselves into strange dreams. 

He dreamt of Jim, dreamt of being with him. With in every sense. Blair dreamt of hot kisses and skin pressing against skin. He would wake, and lie in the cold darkness, burning with curiosity to know what the reality would be like. He’d never thought of Jim that way before but now that he’d started, he couldn’t stop himself. 

He wished Jim were here. He needed to see him, to talk to him, to know if any of the things he was imagining were even remotely possible. 

There was also something disturbing about having erotic dreams while lying alongside virtual strangers who’d kidnapped him. Blair did everything he could do curtail the current train of thought and wondered where Jim was now. 

***

They’d put an APB out for the white van that the kidnappers had got in. When they’d got a report of it at a gas station north of Cascade, Jim and Rafe had set off, lights flashing as they raced along the roads in pursuit. They talked to the gas station attendant, who said that the van had continued north, but he hadn’t seen any sign of Blair. Jim had to hope that Blair was still with them, still alive. If they’d hurt him again… 

The smell of blood brought him out of a near zone. He looked down at his hands. He’d clenched a fist so tightly that his nails had dug into his palm. He hadn’t even noticed. 

He just wanted Blair back so badly. He wanted to know he was safe, to check every inch of Blair’s body for harm. He wanted to touch him, see him, smell him. Jim wanted Blair inside his senses in ways that went way beyond normal. Was this a Sentinel territorial thing kicking off in his subconscious? Or was he just worried about his best friend? 

"Are you with me?” Rafe asked. 

If it had been Blair beside him, asking that question, Jim wondered what he would say. He would probably admit to these weird semi-zone-outs where all he could think about was his need to have Blair beside him. But Blair wasn’t here. 

“I’m fine,” Jim said. 

Rafe didn’t look convinced but he didn’t push. Blair wouldn’t have just let this sit. He would have pushed until he could to the root of Jim’s behaviour. Jim found he was resenting Rafe for respecting his privacy. It was just another sign that things weren’t as they should be. He needed Blair. 

He wondered if this was what drug addicts felt like, desperately craving the thing they needed. He wanted Blair so much it hurt, so much he couldn’t think clearly. 

He was lost in his thoughts again for some time. The drove on into growing darkness. Jim was only partly aware, the rest of him lost somewhere in a whirl of fear and thoughts. He snapped back to reality by something in the corner of his eye. 

“There!” 

“What?” Rafe peered into the darkness beyond the car’s headlights. 

“The van. It’s parked down there.” 

Rafe pulled his car over. He was still squinting into the night. It was fully dark now. The white van was parked up ahead. Jim, if he focused, could just make out the license plate. He knew it was the same one. 

“Are you sure?” Rafe asked. Jim nodded. When Jim spoke, it was in a whisper, faint enough that Rafe had to lean in to hear. Hopefully it was quiet enough that the mysterious Sentinel wouldn’t pick it up. 

“I’ll handle this,” he said. “I’ll try to sneak Blair out.” 

“On your own?” Rafe asked, also in a whisper. 

Jim nodded. He pointed at himself then the van, then at Rafe and at the car. Rafe shook his head in silent argument. Jim opened the car door and ignored him. The longer they stayed here, the greater the risk of someone in the van hearing them. Sneaking up on a Sentinel would be tough. Jim might stand a chance; Rafe wouldn’t. 

Jim walked towards the van, hearing dialled up to the maximum. He could hear breathing from inside the van. He could hear six heartbeats. Blair was in there. Jim knew it. He didn’t know how, but he knew. 

There was faint movement inside the van. Jim froze. He tried to breathe more quietly. He couldn’t do anything about the pounding of his heart. If the Sentinel was awake and listening, she would no doubt be able to hear him out there in the dark. 

He waited. Moments passed. Stillness from inside the van, the silence broken only by the steady beating of the hearts inside. Now he was closer, it was easier to identify locations. Three people were in the front of the van, three in the back. Logic suggested Blair would be one of the ones in the back. 

He started moving again. Step after step. 

He paused again as he approached the van. It was surprising that no one was on guard. Surely one of them would be watching to make sure Blair didn’t escape? There was a lot that didn’t add up about this. 

He reached the van. He waited, listening to the faint sounds from inside. A slight rustle of movement that could have been someone turning in their sleep. Or it could be a Sentinel who’d heard his approach and was even now readying a weapon. Jim had to decide if it was worth taking the chance. 

He didn’t even have to think about it. Blair was in there and he was hurt. 

Jim crouched, hoping that if someone started shooting, they’d aim above him. He reached up for the handle of the van’s back door. He eased the handle out, the click sounding horrifically loud to his enhanced hearing. He pulled slowly. The door swung open. He got a look inside, seeing the sleeping figures. Sara was there, wrapped in the arms of Arthur, apparently peacefully asleep. Jim wanted to rip her throat out. 

Blair was lying on the floor at the edge of the van, half under a narrow bench, his head near the now-open door. 

Jim felt as though his heart stopped beating for a second. He breathed in Blair’s scent for the first time in what felt like forever and it started beating again. He reached out a hand, pressing it over Blair’s mouth. 

He started awake. Surprised movement caused a twitch that knocked Blair’s leg against the side of the van with a faint ring of metal. The sound was quiet, but it was enough for the girl, Sara, to be suddenly awake. 

Jim had his gun pulled out of the holster at his back. He aimed it at the girl’s head before she could reach for the knife at her waist. She looked up at him, seeing the situation with the perfect clarity of a Sentinel. 

“Come on, Blair,” Jim hissed, his voice quiet. He didn’t want those in the front to wake up. “Not a sound,” he hissed at Sara. 

She obeyed, staying silent, but her movements had already disturbed Arthur, who was squinting into the darkness, his heartbeat speeding up when he worked out what happened. Blair slid across the van’s floor, lowering his legs out the door and coming to stand at Jim’s side. He laid a hand on Jim’s arm. 

Jim felt Blair’s touch, right and perfect on his skin. He felt the gentle warmth of this fingers, the familiarity of it. His Guide was at his side where he belonged. 

“Jim? Jim?” Blair’s voice was soft in his ear, his breath warming the side of Jim’s face. Jim came back to himself quickly, shaking off the haze of a zone-out. It took him a second to realise he wasn’t holding his gun again, but that panic quickly dimmed when he saw it in Blair’s hand. 

The others had woken up. The ex-army guy, Matt, was standing next to Jim, aiming a gun at his head, looking at him with the perfect clarity of a Sentinel. Jim’s fear wasn’t for himself though. He reached out and took hold of Blair by the wrist. The gesture was more possessive than protective. He needed to know Blair was safe and he wanted to let the world know that Blair was his. 

They stood in silence for a second. Jim calculated options, considered fighting. Could he disarm this guy in time? Would Blair be able to run back up to Rafe if he needed to? 

Jim became aware of Rafe then, a quiet sound in the distance. Rafe was calling for back-up. 

Sara swore. She’d heard it too. 

“We have to get out of here,” she said. 

Jim’s fingers tightened around Blair’s wrist, digging in with bruising intensity. 

“I’m going with them, Jim,” Blair said quietly. 

“What?” Fear and surprise and something more primal surged through Jim. He wanted to drag Blair off from these others who would claim him. He wanted to scream to the world that no one could take his Guide. He heard the hiss of pain from Blair and wanted to smother the life from whoever had caused it. 

Then he realised he’d caused it. His hand was clenched around Blair’s wrists. 

Jim forced his fingers to relax, but he didn’t let go. He didn’t think he could let go. 

“I came to get you back, chief.” 

“I know. But I promised Daniel I’d help him. He needs my help.” 

“I need you,” Jim said. He meant it with every fibre of his being he just hadn’t realised until now. 

“I know, but I have to do this. You could come with us.” 

The others had got back into the van. Weapons were gone. There were no threats now. Whatever this might have been before, this was no longer a kidnapping. Blair climbed up into the van, despite Jim’s hand still holding onto him. Someone hissed about the urgency of moving and the engine roared to life, but Jim was still standing there outside the van, his hand reaching through the door to cling to Blair. 

Blair had chosen to go with them. Jim never really had a choice. 

He climbed into the back of the van.


	11. Possession

Jim’s fingers were laced between Blair’s. It felt strange, but it felt strangely right at the same time. Blair wasn’t going to let go, partly because the alternative seemed to be having Jim hold his wrist so tightly that he thought his hand might drop off from lack of blood supply. Purple bruises were forming on Blair’s skin where Jim had held him. Blair knew he ought to be angry about that, but instead he was just grateful that Jim was sitting beside him. 

Jim had come to rescue him, just as he’d known he would. Of course, Jim had come to rescue him after Blair had promised to help these people, not while he was being tortured. They’d have to have a long talk about punctuality when they got out of here. 

Jim was practically frozen with tension on the seat beside Blair. He glared across the back of the van at Sara and Art. The van itself was speeding along. There had been some sharp turns earlier and now there was just motion. Blair guessed someone was after them. 

“Someone had better start explaining,” Jim said. It came out like a growl. His fingers tightened slightly around Blair’s. Blair wondered about telling him that it hurt, but he didn’t really want Jim to let go. Something inside him was screaming that being beside Jim, holding onto him like this, was right. 

“They’re Sentinels,” Blair said quietly. “Well, Sara and Matt are.” 

“I figured out you were,” Jim glared at Sara. “I spoke to your psychiatrist.” 

She paled slightly. Her hand was in Art’s, unconsciously mirroring Jim and Blair. Her fingers tightened around Art’s. With his free hand, he reached over to offer a soothing touch on her leg. 

“Art found out about us because of my dissertation,” Blair went on. 

“I figure out that too,” said Jim. “That’s how we found you at that house.” 

Blair continued the explanation, talking about Daniel, the writings, their journeys into the spirit world, and the Sentinel whose spirit was calling out for help. Jim listened quietly, nodding at the appropriate moments. He never stopped glaring at Art and Sara. When Blair finished the story, Jim thought for a moment, and then spoke, his voice calm and quiet. 

“So who tortured you?” he asked Blair, never looking away from Sara. Blair never wanted that tone directed towards him. It what somehow more terrifying than all the heated rages in the world. He suspected that if he answered the question, Jim might jump across the van and snap Sara’s neck. 

Sara didn’t answer the question directly. Instead, she reached for the knife at her belt. Jim’s eyes narrowed as she drew it from the sheath. She flipped it over an offered it, hilt first, to Jim. 

“Do what you need to,” she said. 

Jim reached out slowly, as though expecting a trick, to take the knife from her. He looked at it for a long time, turning it slightly so that the light reflected against the blade. 

“You hurt my Guide,” Jim said. 

“Yes.” 

Blair wondered if he should take the knife off Jim. He didn’t want to explain to Simon why Jim had murdered an unarmed woman. Whatever was going through Jim’s head right now was some mixed up combination of Sentinel protection instincts and a guy worried for his friend. Blair wasn’t sure which was the biggest factor. 

But Jim handed the knife back to Sara. 

“If you so much as touch Sandburg again, I’ll cut your hand off,” he said. On another occasion, Blair might have made some joke about police brutality but this was no joke. Jim would maim to protect Blair. The hand linked with Blair’s retained its possessive grip. 

Blair wasn’t sure if he should be flattered or terrified. 

*** 

Jim knew he wasn’t thinking straight. There was a little corner of his mind where rationality reigned and it was keeping control on the rest of him, but barely. That small voice of sanity reminded him that police officers didn’t stab people, however much they might want to. Police officers also didn’t rip their partner’s clothes off to assess their state of health. At least not if they wanted to avoid sexual harassment suits and getting slapped by Blair. Not necessarily in that order. 

The only way Jim kept from flipping out was focusing his hearing on Blair’s heartbeat, steady and calm beside him. Blair was safe. That thought was on a loop in Jim’s head. 

“So what happens now?” Jim asked. 

“We find the other Sentinel,” Blair answered. 

“And then what?” 

“I have no idea.” 

Jim nearly jumped out of his skin when his cell phone rang. The others tensed, but no one went for weapons, so Jim pulled out his phone. 

“Ellison,” he said. 

"Ellison, where the hell are you?” Simon’s voice screamed down the phone. Jim had to take the phone well away from his ear. 

“Um… being kidnapped?” he said. 

"What the hell is going on?" 

Jim wasn’t sure he could really answer that question, even after Blair’s explanation. He could understand Blair wanting to help some lost Sentinel somewhere; that was what Blair did. What Jim couldn’t understand was Blair going along so calmly with someone who’d just admitted to torturing him. Jim handed Blair the phone. 

“You explain, chief, because I don’t have a clue anymore.” 

“Hi, Simon,” said Blair, sounding somewhat embarrassed. Jim had his hearing dialled up so listen to Simon’s half of the conversation. 

“Sandburg, are you alright?” 

“Yeah, Simon, I’m alright.” 

The concern dealt with, Simon’s next comment made even a non-Sentinel hold the phone away from the ear. 

“Then what the hell are you thinking?!” Simon yelled. “Rafe said you got back in the van with the kidnappers after Ellison got you out.” 

“They’re Sentinels, Simon, and one of them’s in trouble right now.” 

“Believe me, no one is in as much trouble as you are right now.” 

“I’m sorry, but I’ve got to help them.” 

Simon’s voice was quieter now. Jim needed his Sentinel hearing to pick it up. 

“Sandburg, are they coercing you?” 

Blair hesitated, “Not anymore.” 

"Which means what exactly?” 

“They dragged me into this by force but now I’ve agreed to help them because it’s the right thing to do. You can call off the cavalry.” 

“Let me talk to Ellison.” 

Jim took the phone back before Blair offered, indicating that he’d been eavesdropping. 

“I’ll keep him safe,” Jim said. 

“You’d better, because I want to kill himself myself when you get back here.” 

“You’ll have to get in line,” Jim said. He heard a snort of laughter from the front of the van. It seemed he wasn’t the only one who eavesdropped on other people’s phone conversations. 

"I'm going to need a full explanation,” Simon said. 

“I’ll make sure you get it.” 

The phone conversation ended. Jim tucked the phone back into his pocket. Silence fell for a while, overlaid by the van’s engine. They slowed down to a more normal pace. Jim guessed it was because the people in the front of the van had been listening with Sentinel hearing and worked out that they weren’t being chased anymore. 

They drove for some time. Jim found himself obsessing about the fact that Blair was sitting beside him. This was weird, even for him. Blair had been kidnapped or in danger before and Jim had never felt like this. Yes, he’d always been relieved when Blair was home and safe, but he’d never experienced this all-consuming need to… Jim wasn’t even sure what. He wanted to check Blair was OK, assess him for injuries. All that seemed logical enough. But Jim also felt a burning desire to possess him, to protect Blair from harm by making him his. Which made no sense at all, particularly because any attempt on Jim’s part to enforce ownership over Blair would probably lead to only a three hour lecture on the evils of slavery, possibly with tangents on hierarchical behaviour in history societies. 

But still the feeling was there. Something primal, almost animal, was driven by a territorial need to claim Blair. 

Looking across the van, Jim saw Sara and Art, hands linked together, Sara leaning her head against Art’s shoulder. They were so obviously a couple and Jim saw something territorial in the way Sara was clutching Art’s hands. 

Jim couldn’t help but wonder if this was some Sentinel instinct wanting to show these others that they couldn’t take Blair. Blair was his Guide. _His_. No one else could have him.


	12. Jo

The van pulled over on the side of a road. Jim’s ears pricked up to hear, “I think we’ve arrived,” from the front. Art and Sara opened the back doors of the van, climbing out. Jim helped Blair out. Blair was not putting much weight on his left leg, leaning on Jim as he stood. Jim had his arms round Blair, not actually needing the excuse to hold him. 

They’d part beside a high fence, made of wooden panelling and topped with barbed wire. Daniel was standing there, staring at the fence. 

On the other side of the road, farmland and forest spread to the horizon. They were away from any cities, any major roads, any human noise. Yet Jim could hear arguing. He dialled up his hearing. 

“You have no right to do this without consulting me!” a man’s voice, furious, barely keeping from shouting. 

“I’ll do whatever I have to for my child,” a woman’s voice, calm, laced with sadness. 

“Our child!” 

“Our child,” the woman echoed. 

“Our child who is ill and needs professional treatment.” 

“There’s nothing those so-called doctors could do to help.” 

"You have no right to decide that for us. You can't just run away to the middle of nowhere and pretend everything’s OK.” 

“You don’t understand.” 

“You’re damn right I don’t understand!” the man’s voice rose to a yell. 

Moments later, he spoke again, forcing a pretence of calm, “I want to see my kid.” 

"You can't. Not yet." 

“You can’t keep me away! If you force me on this, I’ll get a lawyer, get them to give me custody.” 

“I’m not letting you shut my baby up in some noisy, stinking hospital.” 

"I'm going to do what I think is right,” the man said. 

“So am I.” 

There came the slamming of a car door, then the roar of an engine that disappeared into the distance. 

“Do you think she’s our Sentinel?” Matt asked. 

“Probably not,” said Sara, nodding towards Daniel. Daniel wasn’t looking in the direction of the arguing couple. He was still staring at the wall, or seeing past it in the spirit realm to something beyond. The Sentinels quickly described what they’d heard to the non-Sentinels, who’d only been able to pick up the bits that were shouted. 

“So what do we do now?” Blair asked. 

The seven of them were still standing around the van, debating the best approach, when Sentinel ears picked up the woman’s voice again. 

“I can hear you, you know,” she said. 

So the group, with Olivia gently urging Daniel to come with them, walked along the road beside the high fence until they came to a chain link gate. It was topped with barbed wire like the fence and locked with a very sturdy chain. On the other side stood a woman, probably in her thirties, with tired bags under her eyes and a pallor of exhaustion. 

“You have heightened senses?” Blair asked, skipping over any sort of introduction. 

“My hearing is... excellent.” 

So she wasn't a full Sentinel but she had one sense heightened. That must have been challenging enough to deal with. No wonder she’d ended up out here, miles from the noise of any town. Jim was loving the sense of peace he got, not hearing traffic noise and people and the sounds of a city constantly in the background. 

Daniel was standing by the fence, looking through the gaps between the wires, towards a distance house. It was an old-style farmhouse, but Jim could see that the windows were all covered with blackout blinds. He couldn’t hear anything from within. Either the place was empty or someone had invested a lot in sound-proofing. Daniel was staring at the building with a faint smile on his face. 

The woman was looking at Daniel with worry. It was hardly surprising. He did look somewhat disconcerting as he stood there. 

“Is there someone else here,” Blair asked, “who’s having trouble with heightened senses?” 

She didn’t answer at first, but her eyes flicked back towards the house. 

“I’m not going to let you shut Jo up somewhere,” she said. 

“Never!” Sara said quickly, fiercely. No doubt her time shut away from her senses weighed heavily on her still. 

“We just want to help,” said Blair. 

The woman looked at them all suspiciously for a while longer. 

“Are you... like Jo?” she asked. 

“I’m not personally,” Blair answered, “but these people are.” 

He gestured towards Jim, Sara and Matt. Jim gave a small wave. After a minute, the woman pulled a key out of a pocket to unfasten the chain around the gate. 

A little while later, they were sitting in a gloomy kitchen. The interior of the house had been rapidly augmented with padding and cushions and insulation. Anything to absorb sounds. It was clean, but free from chemical stinks. It was dark and quiet. Walking inside, Jim felt like someone had put a dimmer switch on all of his senses. It was actually really pleasant. He didn’t have to worry that something would send him into a zone or be too much stimulus for dialled up senses. 

It was Art who told the story, about the group of Sentinels and Guides who’d found each other and the things they’d learned from Blair’s book. He talked about Daniel’s dreams and how they’d brought Blair in to help. He skimmed over the part about kidnapping and torturing him. Jim bit his lip and held his silence at that. Under the table, Blair reached out and rested a comforting hand on his leg. 

When Art finished, the woman, who introduced herself as Evelyn, told her story. 

“All my life, my hearing’s been enhanced. When I was little, I just assumed that everyone else could hear like I could. Then I remember my mum taking me aside and telling me that I was special. I was like a superhero. I could do things that other people couldn’t, amazing things. But, like a superhero, I had to keep it a secret. I believed her. I didn’t talk about my hearing, but I knew that I was going to do great things. Then, when I was eleven, I told my best friend. She called me a freak. I could hear her whispering about me to the other kids. My parents moved us to a whole new town, to get away from the bullying and I never told another soul. Even when I got married, I didn’t tell him.” 

"And Jo?” Blair prompted. 

“I thought Jo was normal at first. He seemed like every other kid. I was thrilled that he’d never have to hide a part of himself like I did. Then he went on a camping trip with school and he got lost.” 

“Isolation,” Blair muttered. 

“He found his way back the next day. He said he’d heard the camp, even though he’d been miles away. I knew then that my baby would never be normal again.” 

“Was it just hearing?” Blair asked. 

Evelyn shook her head, “The hearing was the first. It started on that camping trip. But over the next few days, all his senses started playing up. Food would taste wrong. Lights were too bright.” 

Jim nodded understanding and saw the other Sentinels around the table doing the same. It was all horribly familiar. 

"His father took him to clinics and doctors. He wanted to fix it. I tried to make him see that it wasn’t that simple. It’s who Jo is. But Jo was hurting. He couldn’t cope was so much stimulation for his senses. I thought that if I brought him out here, away from the city, I could help him get everything under control.” 

“Let us help with that,” Blair said. 

Evelyn hesitated again. This time, it was Daniel who broke the silence. He’d spent the conversation standing at the side of the room, apparently staring at the wall. He must have been looking towards wherever Jo was, because now he turned to look at Evelyn. The dazed, confused look had faded slightly from his face. 

“I need to see Jo,” Daniel said. 

***

Jo’s room was in the heart of the house, the walls around it covered in quilts and blankets to dampen any sound. The lights in the hallway outside were the faintest gleam, so that even Jim was struggling to see clearly. Evelyn stumbled on a trailing edge of cloth as she approached the door with Daniel and Jim in tow. When she opened the door, the room beyond seemed even darker. A little glow-in-the-dark star stuck on the wall provided the only illumination. 

Despite the darkness, it seemed like a pleasant room. Everything was soft and warm, with blankets and cushions covering the floor. There were piles of books and a box of toys. The dark and quiet made it a haven of peace for a Sentinel out of control. 

But the boy sitting in the middle of it all, looked at the new arrivals with suspicion, even fear. He looked maybe ten years old, sitting cross-legged on a cushion with a book on his knees. 

“Are you like me?” he asked, his voice barely audible even to Jim’s ears. 

It was Daniel who replied, his voice equally quiet. Jim wasn’t sure how Daniel could have even heard the question, since he didn’t have Sentinel hearing. Maybe he was listening with his spirit or some mystical crap like that. 

“My wife was. I helped her learn to cope with her senses. I can teach you the same.” 

“Can you make me normal?” 

“No,” Daniel smiled. “I can make you amazing.” 

Daniel went into the bedroom and shut the door behind him. The door was covered in padding too, but Jim could make out faint murmurs of voices on the other side. He probably could have made out the words if he’d strained his hearing, but it seemed wrong to invade their privacy like that. 

Jim went out to the kitchen, where Blair had waited, still sitting to avoid any unnecessary weight on his leg. Jim wasn’t sure where the others had gone to and right now he didn’t care. Blair was in front of him and they were alone in the room. It wasn’t as dark as the middle of the house. Blair could still see him, though everything was dim and gloomy. For some reason, it made Jim think of his bedroom back in Cascade. Even in the middle of the night, it was never fully dark because of the city lights outside the window. 

“Are you OK?” Blair asked. 

“I need...” Jim wasn’t sure how to phrase what he wanted. “I need to see what they did to you.” 

Blair pushed the chair back from the kitchen table, turning it sideways on. Jim went and crouched on the floor beside him. Blair’s feet were bare, the soles scratched and dirty from the ground outside. Jim went to the sink and poured a basin of water, finding a soft dishcloth. He carried them both back to Blair and began slowly washing away the grime. Each motion was slow and careful, trying to avoid tickling as he wiped away dirt. Blair’s smile was bemused but pleased as Jim worked. Jim was just aware of Blair through all his senses. Blair’s scent, Blair’s touch, the sight of the minor scratches on the coarse skin, the sound of his heartbeat, slightly rapid. 

Then Jim worked his way up, pushing the trouser leg up above Blair’s knee. He peeled back the tape with infinite care to remove the gauze from the wound. He saw the lines of shallow cuts, each one clotted and safe now. There was redness around the cuts, from the bleeding and from soreness. But there was no sign of swelling or inflammation. No trace of infection. 

Jim was almost zoning on the sight, in some strange state of being he’d never experienced before. He just wanted Blair in all his senses. He was in four already. It didn’t seem at all strange at the time, to lean forward and run his tongue up Blair’s leg, experiencing the taste of blood and sweat and something inescapably, perfectly... Blair. 

“Jim?” The name was barely breathed, almost a question. 

Jim looked up, momentarily afraid that he’d see shock or disgust in Blair’s eyes. Instead, he saw something else. Confusion, yes, but desire as well. 

Jim straightened up slightly. Blair bent himself forward. 

For the first time, their lips met.


	13. Need

Blair wasn’t sure which of them started the kiss, but both dove into it with full enthusiasm. It was hot and desperate. Two pairs of lips fought possessively against the other. Jim’s hand came up to slide fingers into Blair’s hair. Everything Blair had been feeling over the past couple of days, the need to be with Jim, came pouring out. 

Then Jim pulled away. His fingers slid from Blair’s head. There was a faint tug as a few strands of hair caught in his fingers. Then Jim was on his feet, fleeing from the kitchen. 

Blair was left breathless and hot and so very, very confused. 

"Jim?" he called out, but got no response. 

What the hell had that been about? 

Blair wasn't sure where the kiss had come from but he could guess. Since seeing the other Sentinel and Guide pairs, he’d wanted to know what it would be like with Jim, to be with him the way they were with each other. Strangely, it didn’t feel like that big a step. He’d thought, he’d been so sure, that Jim wanted the same thing. But then he’d just run off like that. Like he’d been afraid. 

Or ashamed. 

Fear was sitting somewhere in Blair’s guts. He was more afraid than he’d been in the cellar, when Sara had her knife out. There, he’d known that Jim was coming for him, would always be coming for him, no matter what. Now, Jim had fled because of a kiss. What might he do if he realised what Blair had been thinking? 

A part of Blair wanted to crawl into a dark hole and hide, but the rest of him knew that they needed to resolve this. He needed to know why Jim had run because that way they could get past it, get things back to the way they should be, with Jim at Blair’s side. 

Blair got to his feet, ignoring the sharp stabs of pain up his skin. He walked slowly, painfully, across the kitchen to the door. It didn’t take him long to find Jim. He was outside of the house, where a thin drizzle had started to fall. Jim was leaning against the wall, apparently oblivious to the rain that was darkening his hair and making his skin sparkle with tiny droplets. There might have been other moisture on his cheeks, mingling with the rain, but it was difficult to tell. Jim didn’t look up at Blair, but a slight increase of tension in his shoulders showed that he knew he was there. 

"I'm sorry, chief," Jim said quietly. 

"For what?" Blair asked. He was terrified of what the answer might be. Was Jim sorry because he didn’t share Blair’s sudden desire? Because it sickened him? Because he was throwing Blair out because he couldn’t bear to share an apartment with someone who wanted him that way? 

“For... you know.” 

“I don’t know. You’re going to have to spell it out for me.” 

Jim started to say something that turned into a frustrated grunt and he leaned his head back against the house wall with a thud. 

“I don’t know what’s happening to me,” Jim said. 

Blair walked up to him and placed a hand on Jim’s arm. Jim flinched away from the touch. Blair stopped breathing for a moment. That tiny movement, that little pulling away, hurt more than a punch to the face. 

“Jim, what’s going on in your head?” 

“Forget it, OK?” Jim straightened up from the wall, turning away, already starting walking. 

“No! I won’t forget it.” 

If Jim ran, there was no way Blair could catch him. Not with his leg like this. He needed Jim to stay because if he left, Blair wasn’t sure what he would do. He wasn’t sure he could survive it. 

Jim stopped, but he was still facing away from Blair. Wouldn’t look at him. 

“Something is happening to me, chief,” Jim said, “and I want it and it terrifies me at the same time. It’s like what happened with Alex.” 

Blair remembered seeing Jim with Alex, seeing him kissing her. The comparison was another wound to his soul. Jim had been wrapped up in Sentinel instincts and done things he would never normally have done. Blair didn’t want this to be the same. He didn’t want this to be some animal drive that would vanish as if it had never happened. He wanted this to be real. 

But Jim was still talking, “When Alex first showed up, I got possessive. My loft, my desk, mine, mine, mine. I feel like that but with you. I want you to be mine.” 

Blair breathed out his answer, Sentinel soft, “I am.” 

Blair wished he could see Jim’s face, to get some idea of what was going on inside his head. But he didn’t dare moved. He just stood there, seeing the dampness spreading through Jim’s shirt from the slow rain. He saw the tenseness of Jim’s shoulders. 

“I don’t want to screw us up,” Jim said quietly. 

Blair understood. It was like the sun had just come out an illuminated the world. His fear was still there, still an anxious, worried part of him, but it didn’t matter as much. Now that he knew. 

“You’re afraid,” Blair said. “You’re afraid that this is some weird Sentinel instinct thing making us act like this because the others are around. You’re afraid that this feeling will go away and then we’ll be afraid to look at each other again. You’re afraid everything will be awkward and that... that I’ll move out of the loft because I can’t bear to look at you. You’re afraid that if you touch me, you’ll give in to these desires you don’t understand and then we won’t be able to be friends anymore.” 

Jim gave a shaking breath and spoke in a voice close to tears, “Did you pick up mind-reading skills while guiding people through the spirit realm?” 

"I don't need to read your mind. I’m thinking exactly the same things.” 

Jim spun round in a heartbeat, staring at Blair. The fear was there on his face, mingled with shock and... was that delight? 

“We won’t let this screw anything up,” Blair said. 

“You can’t know that.” 

“I know that,” Blair said. He took a few limping steps forward to close the distance between them. He reached up a hand to Jim’s neck, surprised at how easily he got Jim to lean forward. Blair tilted his head up. When their lips were millimetres apart, he spoke again. 

“I know,” he said, “because you’re mine too.” 

It was Jim who closed the final distance. Their lips met in frantic desperation. Blair still had his hand around Jim’s neck, the other, he wound around Jim’s back, feeling his warmth through the damp shirt. Jim’s hands were tangled in Blair’s hair, sometimes tugging slightly but just enough for Blair to know Jim was holding onto him. Wasn’t about to let go. 

Blair found himself pressed into Jim. Warmth and strength surrounded him. 

This was right. Some primitive part of him screamed out in joy as they plundered each other’s mouths. Each sort to own and be owned. This wasn’t desire. This was need. Blair needed Jim. Jim needed Blair. 

Blair only broke the kiss when he thought he might pass out from lack of oxygen. Even then, Jim’s arms were around him, holding him up, holding him close. Once he was breathing again, Blair tilted his head up for another kiss. 

“No,” the sound emerged from Jim’s voice like a growl. 

Jim pulled away with obvious difficulty. 

“No?” Blair asked, more than a little hurt. This was what he’d been afraid of. This abandonment. 

“If we’re going to do this,” Jim said, “I want it to be real.” 

“It is real.” 

“I’m not so sure, chief. I want this. I want to strip you naked and take you, claim you, right here and now. But if this is some Sentinel thing that will wear off... I can’t do that to you.” 

“You’re not going to do anything I don’t want you to.” 

“I know. That’s what scares me most.” 

Jim turned and stalked off into the rain, leaving Blair sizzling with desire and anger. Jim no doubt thought he was doing the right thing with this misplaced chivalry, preventing himself taking advantage. But right now, Blair needed this as much as Jim did and he was mad as hell as Jim for not letting Blair make that choice. 

Blair knew he didn’t stand a chance of catching up with Jim on his injured leg, so he hobbled back inside to find a seat and to fume. 

***

The house wasn’t very big, but the grounds were extensive. The fence trapped an area of overgrown farmland, yards and outbuildings. Jim made it away from the house and rounded the wall of a barn, wanting to get some distance so he could think clearly. He wasn’t focused on his senses, so he nearly walked into Sara, who was leaning against the barn’s wall. 

“You shouldn’t fight it,” she said. 

“What?” Jim snapped. He suspected he knew what she was talking about and that just made it worse. He’d been having a private moment with Blair and he didn’t need some psychopath listening in. 

“What you’re feeling with Blair, the connection, you shouldn’t fight it.” 

“I don’t think it’s any of your business.” 

“Do you know why I cut Blair?” 

Her mentioning that wasn’t helping his temper any. 

“Because you’re a psychotic bitch?” Jim suggested. 

“Because he wouldn’t break. I just meant to scare him. I thought he’d talk as soon as I got the knife out but he wouldn’t, no matter how scared he got.” 

“Do you have a point or just a death wish?” The desire to snap her neck was back. 

“However scared he was for himself, he was more scared for you,” Sara said. “He saw that this was about Sentinels and was afraid that we might hurt you. He was willing to face torture for you. He’d do anything for you. A hell of a lot of married couples don’t have that devotion.” 

Devotion. Jim heard that word and knew she meant it. Knew she was right. Blair had given up everything for him. Blair had sacrificed his career, his doctorate, his good name. Everything except his hair. Blair had risked his life for Jim time and again. Hell, he’d given his life for him once. Jim really shouldn’t be scared that whatever was going on between them now would drive a wedge between them. 

But he’d meant what he’d said before. If something were to happen between them, he didn’t want it to be because of instinctive behaviour, driven by adrenaline and territorial instincts. Blair was worth more than that. Besides, if they came out the other side and Blair was back to chasing anyone in the skirt, Jim didn’t think he’d be able to survive it. He needed Blair, more than he’d ever known was possible. 

Sara was still talking, “What I have with Art, it’s like nothing I’d have believed possible. It’s like something out of a romance novel: true and unconditional love. If you fight this feeling, you’ll spend the rest of your life fighting. If you accept it, you can share your life with someone who truly loves you.” 

Jim knew she meant well, but he didn’t want to talk about this with her or all people. Whatever was going on between him and Blair was for him and Blair. He certainly didn’t want to discuss it with another Sentinel who’d hurt his Guide. 

He turned to walk away, to find Blair and try and talk this through without interference. Then he sniffed, catching a scent through the damp air. 

“Is that blood?” 

Her hand shot to her side. It was the same point where she’d cut Blair during their earlier stand-off. There was blood on her knife and it wasn’t Blair’s. Jim frowned. 

“Did you cut yourself?” 

She was avoiding looking at him. She turned away, hand still clutched to her side. 

“I don’t want to talk about it.” 

“Why?” 

“Because it’s personal.” 

“I meant why did you cut yourself?” 

“Didn’t you just hear me?” 

“Yes, but you listened in on an intimate moment between myself and Sandburg, so it’s only fair.” 

Sara gave a shuddering sigh and turned back to look at him. 

“I cut myself to make it fair,” she said. “I decided I wasn’t going to hurt Blair anymore, but then I did. I cut his side. So I needed to balance things out by cutting my own.” 

It made a twisted sort of sense. Jim found himself secretly glad that she'd bled like Blair had, though that wasn't something he should ever admit as a police officer. Instead he settled for saying, “You need a therapist.” 

“I had one. He stuck me in a psych ward and stole two years of my life.”


	14. Second Thoughts

Blair sat in the kitchen, chopping vegetables while he talked to Evelyn. She hadn’t been prepared for such an onslaught of guests, but she had enough to feed them for tonight. Matt and Olivia had taken the van and gone in search of further supplies so that they’d be able to eat tomorrow. Sleeping arrangements would be a challenge, but she said there were some old blankets that the rest of them could use. 

Evelyn was preparing a soup using pretty much everything that was left in the fridge. She’d put a chopping board and knife in front of Blair and he worked his way through carrots and celery to go into her pot. While they worked, she talked about Jo and about the problems she’d had growing up with enhanced hearing. 

“People often thought I was fussy if I complained,” Evelyn said, “but it could be extremely irritating if, say, someone was tapping a pencil in the library when I was studying. Noises that no one else could hear were infuriating. I slept badly most nights because there would just be a background of sound to keep me awake. Particularly when I went to college. Campus was never quiet.” 

Blair nodded, thinking of Rainer. The students who lived in dorms could be out and about at all hours. 

"Did you ever talk to a doctor about your hearing?” Blair asked. 

“No. Not really. My parents would touch on it when I was little, just said I had sensitive ears, but they didn’t want me to spend my life being poked and prodded. I don’t want that for Jo either.” 

“Which is why you brought him here?” 

“That’s right.” 

“Even though your husband thought differently.” 

Evelyn gave a sigh. She came over to the table to pick up the chopping board. She returned to the hob to deposit the vegetables into the big cooking pot. It was only when she was stirring the pot, facing well away from Blair, that she spoke again. 

“I tried to make him see that Jo wasn’t ill, he’s special. But he’s like any father. He wants his son safe and he trusts in traditional medicine.” 

Evelyn gave the soup another stir and then set about making Jo’s dinner, which was a bland porridge. Apparently he couldn’t cope with anything that had a strong flavour and he sometimes had issues with texture as well. She told Blair about Jo’s food troubles while she worked. Blair felt almost like he was interviewing someone and had to fight the urge to take notes. Hearing all of this stuff would have been amazingly valuable a few years ago when he’d been working on his dissertation. 

When the food was ready, Evelyn called together the Sentinels and their Guides. She picked up Jo’s to take it through to him, when the boy came into the doorway of the kitchen, Daniel standing close behind him. A hush fell over the room, as though everyone was afraid to speak, afraid that the sound might be too much for him. The room was still gloomy with the blinds down, but he had no difficulty looking at his mum. 

“I’d like to try eating in here,” he said. His voice was quiet, but still close enough to normal for Blair to hear him. 

“Are you sure?” Evelyn asked. 

Jo nodded, “Daniel’s been teaching me about the dials and I’ve been practicing. I think I can cope.” 

The table was too small for everyone to sit around. Blair got a seat because of his leg, Evelyn got one because no one wanted to take it from her since she owned the place. Daniel and Jo sat in the other chairs. The rest of the group stood around the edges of the room, holding their soup bowls in their hands. 

“What are the dials?” Evelyn asked, putting Jo’s bowl in front of him. He took a mouthful and then asked to try the soup. Evelyn’s grin illuminated the room. 

“The dials are a technique Blair came up with for me,” Jim said. “You focus and mentally picture a dial attached to one of your senses and you imagine turning it down. It’s a way of controlling how much your senses influence you.” 

Evelyn turned to Blair, that brilliant joy still flashing across her face, "You came up with it?" 

“Yeah, I did,” Blair said. “It’s based on visualisation techniques for meditation. Some branches of meditation advise the practitioner to picture the flow of energies through the body so that you can feel where there are blockages and problem areas. Sentinel senses are something that you can control, so it’s a matter of bringing that control to the surface rather than having it act on an instinctive level.” 

Evelyn was nodding through his ramble. Across the table, Daniel, looking perfectly normal now that he’d found the missing Sentinel, said, “I can help Jo learn the other techniques Blair put in his book.” 

Evelyn jerked her attention back to Blair, “You’ve written a book? I’d love to read it.” 

“It was never published,” Blair said. 

Her smiled dimmed slightly, “I bet. No doubt it sounded crazy to anyone who hasn’t lived through this.” 

Blair didn't want to say that it hadn't been like that. 

After dinner, Blair was excused helping clear up because of his leg. So he limped outside. The rain had stopped for now, but it was chilly and the cold ground bit at his bare feet. He wanted somewhere private to think but there wasn’t going to be any space inside the house. He limped across the yard to an old barn, slipping the door open and finding a quiet spot in the corner to sit. It wasn’t much warmer, but at least it was out of the wind. 

He’d been there less than a minute when the door opened and Jim came in. 

“What are you doing out here, chief?” 

“Trying to find some privacy,” Blair grinned. 

“Oh. Right. Do you want me to go?” 

“No. It’s OK. In fact, there are some things we probably need to discuss.” 

“I know,” Jim said quickly, “but not here. Let’s wait until we’re back home.” 

“Not about that,” Blair cut him off. He took a breath, trying to think of a way to say this that wouldn’t lead to Jim hitting him. 

“I want to publish my book,” Blair said. 

Jim didn’t immediately start yelling, which was a good sign. He took a breath. He paced a few steps. He turned back to Blair and opened his mouth to speak, then turned back and paced a few more steps. When he finally spoke, it didn’t seem to be worthy of such long consideration. 

“Oh,” Jim said. 

“I’d have to make a lot of changes to it,” Blair said, “and I know that even if I strip out every reference to your name, everyone will remember last time and so I can’t keep you out of it. But seeing Jo tonight, hearing Art and Daniel and the others talk about how much they learned from my writing, I can’t just ignore it. I want to put something out there that will help other Sentinels learn to use their abilities.” 

Jim gave Blair a long look and then resumed pacing. 

“Say something, Jim.” 

“I just... Give me a minute to think, chief.” 

A few steps away, a few steps back, a few steps away. Jim turned again and faced Blair. 

“It can’t be like last time,” Jim said, “but I think you’re right.” 

“You do?” 

“Sara was locked up in a mental hospital for two years because people mistook her heightened senses for hallucinations. Jo’s dad wanted to hand him over to doctors for testing and who knows what other hell thinking there was something wrong with the kid. Hell, I thought I was going nuts until I met you.” Jim brought a hand up to drag through his hair, a gesture uncharacteristically emotional. 

“How many Sentinels do you think there are, chief?” he asked. 

“I don’t know,” Blair answered. He’d thought Jim was almost unique until he’d met Alex. Now he knew that there had been three more in Cascade and another in the outskirts. Cascade wasn’t even that big of a city. If every city in America can four or five Sentinels, how many might that mean worldwide? 

“There could be hundreds, locked up like Sara was, or pretending to be normal like Evelyn, or suppressing their abilities like I did. If Sentinels were known, they could get the support they need.” 

Blair nodded, “That’s what I want. That’s what I want my book to be about. It should tell the world about Sentinels but it should also tell Sentinels about themselves: how to live with the senses, how to control them, how to make use of them.” 

“But it can’t be like last time,” Jim said. “We need to control it somehow so that I’m not in the limelight again, unable to do my job.” 

“That’s the bit I’m struggling with,” said Blair. “I don’t know how to do that.” 

“I think I do,” a new voice joined the discussion. The barn door opened and Sara stepped in. 

“You give the press someone else for the spotlight to focus on,” she said.


	15. Proof

“Someone’s coming,” Jo said. 

The whole group were at breakfast. Jim was standing against the kitchen counter, eating a slice of toast. Jo was at the table, eating his porridge, but he’d asked his mum to put some honey on it this morning. Apparently this was a big deal. 

Jim dialled up his hearing, trying to pick up what the kid had heard. From the looks on their faces, Evelyn and the other two Sentinels were doing the same. Jim strained his hearing until he could the heartbeats of everyone in the room, the wind rustling the leaves outside, the chirping of small birds, the faint gurgles coming from the house’s hot water tank. 

“I don’t hear anything,” said Matt. His voice was loud and close, distracting Jim for a moment, then he got his hearing dialled fully up again and he caught it. 

“A car engine,” Jim said. “Approaching.” 

“I don’t,” Sara began, then she cut herself of. “Wait. I hear it.” 

“It’ll be my husband,” said Evelyn. “He was threatening to bring a lawyer if I didn’t let him take Jo home.” 

“I want to see him,” said Jo. “But I don’t want to be taken to doctors like he wanted.” 

Evelyn reached out a hand and laid it on her son’s shoulder, “You won’t have to go anywhere you don’t want. But I think your dad needs to hear what these guys can tell him.” 

Matt, Olivia, Sara and Art all made themselves scarce. They didn’t want to freak out Jo’s dad by appearing on mass. They’d all agreed that Blair should be the one to do most of the talking, which Jim knew from experience wouldn’t be difficult to arrange. Daniel would be sticking close by in case Jo had difficulties with his senses, but the kid seemed to be getting better at them by the minute. Jim was seriously impressed with how he’d picked up the car before any of the others in the room. The kid definitely had inherited his mother’s hearing and then some. It was no wonder that Jo had struggled when his senses came online. 

When the car pulled up outside the gate, Jim could hear a man calling for Evelyn. Evelyn and Jo stood, walking together from the house. She had a hand on Jo’s shoulder, comforting him. When they reached the doorway, Jo hesitated. Jim suspected that this was the first time the kid had gone outside since his mum had brought him here. The hesitation was brief and then he stepped outside. 

Daniel was hovering in the hallway, watching Jo face the great outdoors. He smiled when Jo took the step over the threshold. Blair and Jim waited here, letting the family have their moment. Jim half listened the conversation outside. It seemed that the dad was accompanied by a lawyer, trying to get custody of Jo, but the legalese was forgotten the minute Jo came into view. 

In the hallway, Blair turned to Daniel and asked how he was. 

“Better,” Daniel said. “Much better. No jungle dreams. No animals invading my vision when I’m awake. I feel like me again. And you were right, Blair. It was never about replacing Beth. It was about helping someone in trouble. Beth would have been all for that.” 

“I’m sure she would have been proud of the way you’ve been helping Jo.” 

Daniel smiled, “She probably would have been. After she kicked my ass for fighting the call.” 

Blair chuckled. Jim grinned. 

“Will this happen again?” Daniel asked. “If there’s some hurting Sentinel out there, will I start getting the jungle dreams?” 

“Honestly, I have no idea,” Blair said. “I don’t know enough about the spiritual side of being a Sentinel or a Guide. Maybe you were most receptive because of your grief for Beth. Maybe Jo’s spirit is somehow louder than other people’s. Or maybe hearing others in need is a talent you have that you’ll have to learn to live with.” 

Daniel laughed and Blair had to ask what the joke was. 

“Before all this,” Daniel explained, “Art used to talk about you and your book. The way he told it, it sounded like you were this all-knowing expert on everything to do with Sentinels. It’s nice to know that you get stumped sometimes.” 

“I was figuring it out as I went along with Jim,” Blair admitted. 

“That didn’t stop him acting like he knew everything,” Jim said, earning a playful slap on the arm from Blair. 

Jim was still paying some attention to the conversations happening outside. Evelyn had agreed to let her husband inside to discuss Jo’s condition with him. Jim and Blair returned to the kitchen table, Daniel lurking in the room next door in case he was needed. Jo’s father looked a lot like him, but with greying hair and a shadow of stubble around his jaw. He looked tired, sad. No doubt all of this had put as much strain on him as it had Evelyn. 

“This is my husband, Al,” Evelyn said, “Al, this is Jim Ellison and Blair Sandburg.” 

Al shook hands cautiously, but looking with interest at Jim, saying, “Your name sounds familiar.” 

“I’m a detective with Cascade PD. Sometimes my name gets included in the papers.” 

Recognition crossed the man’s face, “Of course. There was all that nonsense a couple of years ago about you being some kind of supercop.” 

“It wasn’t nonsense,” Jim said. “I have heightened senses. Just like Jo.” 

Al turned to Evelyn, “Have you been listening to these two? They’re frauds.” 

“They’re not,” Evelyn said. 

“The papers said he made it all up,” Al jabbed a finger at Blair. 

Jim had heard the same things so many times since Blair’s press conference. It hurt Jim as much as it must do Blair to hear the lies everyone believed about that stupid dissertation. Jim started to protest Blair’s authenticity, but it was Jo who spoke. 

“Sentinels are real, Dad. Jim’s one and so am I.” 

Al reached out, taking Jo’s hand in his, speaking in calm tones, “Jo, whatever these people have told you, we need to go home. I’ll see that you get proper treatment, not some fraud trying to dupe innocent people.” 

“Dad! It’s real. I’ll prove it.” 

“Jo, we’re going home.” 

“No!” Jo pulled his hand away. “I’ll prove I’m a Sentinel.” 

Al shook his head, still disbelieving, “Jo...” 

“What have you got to lose?” Blair asked. “Let him try. If he can’t convince you that his sense are really heightened, then you can take Jo back with you.” 

Jo turned to Blair, obviously angry, “You said you wouldn’t let him take me.” 

“He won’t,” Blair said, “because I have every faith in you proving your abilities.” 

"Fine," said Al. "What's this proof going to look like?” 

“Go outside,” Blair said to Al. “Jo, dial up your hearing. Al, you say something really quietly and Jo will listen. Say something random, just a series of words that no one would guess.” 

Jo still looked doubtful but he went outside. Jim dialled up his hearing as well, picking up Al’s words. He’d followed Blair’s instructions and just reeled off a series of words: “Elephant, lilac, forty-two, flower pot.” 

When he returned, Jo gave the words exactly as Al had said them. Al still looked doubtful, but they repeated the test. After the third time that Jo gave exactly the right words, he looked considerably more convinced. 

“This could still be a trick,” Al said. 

“Why would we want to trick you?” asked Evelyn. “Jo really does have heightened senses. I brought him here so that he’d have somewhere calm and quiet to learn how to deal with them.” 

Al leaned against the kitchen counter, staring at Jo and at Jim. 

“So, Sentinels?” he said. 

“Yes,” Jim said. 

“Not a fraud?” 

“No.” 

“Oh.” Al dragged a hand over his face. “So what happens now?” 

“Now, Jo learns how to use his gift,” Blair answered. “And I... I have a book to write.”


	16. Experiments

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn't sure if this was OK under the Mature rating or if the rating should be changed to Explicit. Consider this a heads up: there is sex in this chapter. If you don't want to read that, feel free to skip the second half of the chapter.

Blair and Jim walked into the precinct together. It felt like months since they were last here. Blair was definitely looking the worse for wear. He was still limping slightly, and neither of them had had enough sleep recently. There were shadows under Blair’s eyes and he was still in the bloody and dirty clothes he’d been kidnapped in, still missing his shoes. Both of them could do with a shower, but Jim wanted to check in with Captain Banks first. 

The second they walked into the bullpen, they were surrounded by people. Megan was the first, rushing across from her desk at the sight of them. 

“Sandy! Are you OK?” 

“I’m fine,” Blair said. 

“You’re limping.” 

“Yeah, I was tortured. But I’m fine now.” 

Rafe was next. After a quick check that Blair was alright, Rafe started berating Jim for getting into the van with the kidnappers. 

“What were you thinking?” Rafe asked. 

“That’s really Sandburg’s fault,” Jim said. 

“Hey!” Blair slapped him on the arm again. 

“Is the captain in?” Jim asked. 

No one needed to answer that question because a voice bellowed across the bullpen: “ELLISON! SANDBURG! GET IN HERE!!!” 

They hurried through the crowds of well-wishers to the captain’s office. Simon was waiting for them. The look of relief when he saw Blair was unmistakable, though it was quickly hidden in his gruff demeanour. 

“Are you hurt?” Simon asked Blair. 

“Nothing that won’t heal. I’ll be fine in a day or so.” 

"Glad to hear it. Now what the hell is this about you deciding to help your kidnappers?” 

“Sir, they were Sentinels,” Blair said. He told the story, the short version. He explained about Sara and Art, and how Art had got hold of the unpublished manuscript. He skimmed over somewhat the journeys into the spirit world, but he did talk about Daniel’s visions and finding Jo. 

“And that’s it?” Simon asked. “You helped them find this kid and now it’s over?” 

Blair looked at Jim. Jim looked back at Blair. This was the bit that Jim was not looking forward to. Simon had been around the last time when all hell had broken loose. He’d been shot during the chaos. He wasn’t going to be happy about this decision. 

“What?” Simon demanded, seeing all the glancing going on. “Spit it out!” 

“I’m going to try and publish again,” Blair said. “Not the same book, though I will be using some of the background material from my dissertation.” 

“Are you out of your mind?!” Simon’s voice had risen to a yell again. 

"Sara spent two years in a mental hospital,” said Jim, “because people thought her heightened senses were hallucinations. Hell, I thought I was hallucinating until I met Blair. People don’t know about Sentinels and it means that people who have heightened senses have to figure it out alone.” 

Blair continued, “Simon, I know there will be challenges if we go public. And even if I strip out every mention of Jim’s name from the book, the press won’t have forgotten. But this is the right thing to do for all the Sentinels out there who don’t understand what’s happening to them. I want to write a book advising them how to cope.” 

Simon looked at them both, still obvious fuming. He glared at Jim, “I can’t believe you’re willing to go along with this insanity after what happened last time.” 

"Last time caught us off guard," said Jim. “This time, we’ll be in control of what gets announced to the press and when. If you want, I can take a leave of absence when we make the announcements so that we keep the press away from the precinct as much as possible. And there’s someone else who’ll be working to divert the press’s attention.” 

“Who?” Simon asked. 

“Sara. She’s going to sue the mental hospital. She’s going to demand a public admission that her heightened senses are real and ask the hospital to pay back the fees that her parents paid them while she was there. It should give the reporters something to talk about other than me.” 

“There’ll still be hell over this.” 

“I understand, sir. I realise that the mayor isn’t going to be too happy about being lied to again.” 

Simon cut him off, “Oh, the mayor already knows that you’re a Sentinel.” 

“He does?” Blair and Jim asked together. 

“How do you think I got him to agree to Sandburg staying on as a consultant after the fiasco? I had to tell him the truth. But he agreed it was better that the criminals didn’t know we had an advantage over them.” 

"Well, that's one bit of good news." 

“IA will still want to rake you over the coals.” 

“I know,” said Jim, “but we made sure that we had solid evidence for all of our cases. This shouldn’t compromise any of them.” 

“Shouldn’t, but still might.” Simon sighed, “I don’t suppose I can talk you out of this?” 

“Sorry. We’ll let you know before we say anything to anyone so you can be prepared, but we’ve made the decision.” 

“Well then, good luck to you. Now get out of here. You both look like hell and smell worse. Go home, get some sleep and for God’s sake take a shower. I want you in first thing tomorrow.” 

“Thanks, Simon,” said Blair. 

“Yeah, thanks.” 

“And, Sandburg, I’m glad you’re alright.” 

“Thanks.” 

They headed out of Simon's office and across the bullpen, waylaid by more well-wishers. Taggart wanted to check that Blair was really OK. It was actually quite touching how many people wanted to make sure that their civilian consultant was safe and sound. Eventually, Jim had to step in, only half joking as he told the guys that he was under orders from Simon to see that Blair took a shower. It was all smiles and laughter, reassuringly normal. 

The drive back to the loft was quiet. Blair was lost in thought instead of sharing lectures on ancient cultures or tribal traditions. Jim didn’t ask what he was thinking about. He suspected he knew and he was feeling nervous about it. They’d avoided any conversation about the kisses that they’d shared, using the excuse that it was best left until they were safe and alone. Well, they were safe. They were alone. Now they’d have to talk about it. 

Jim wasn’t sure which scared him most, the thought that Blair might say yes to being with him or that he might say no. Jim knew he loved Blair but he’d spent his life content in heterosexuality. He wasn’t sure he was ready for the reality of what loving Blair might mean. 

He pulled the truck into the parking lot and they headed for the elevator. Jim could still pick up traces of perfume permeating the apartment block. He’d probably be smelling it for a year. They stood in the elevator, an unaccustomed distance between them. Jim wasn’t sure how to close that gap, afraid that any move he made might be misinterpreted. So they rode up in silence. Then Jim led the way to the loft door, unlocked it with suddenly fumbling fingers. He’d done this a thousand times before but now everything felt strange. 

When the door was closed behind them, Blair started to speak. 

“Shower first,” Jim said. 

“Jim...” 

“It’s not a delay tactic, chief.” Blair gave him a look. “OK. It’s not just a delay tactic. You don’t have a Sentinel nose.” 

“Fine. But then we’re talking.” 

Blair headed for the bathroom and Jim heard the spray of water. While he waited, he checked for anything still edible. He gave up and placed a call for take away. Blair seemed to be spending a long time in the bathroom. Jim found himself imagining what Blair must look like under the spray, water running over bare skin. 

There could be no doubt he was still attracted to Blair. Maybe this was some freaky thing caused by the recent contact with other Sentinels, but the feeling was real right now. He wanted Blair. This was pure, undiluted lust. 

He was just scared about what might happen next if he acted on these feelings. What if this was a temporary thing and tomorrow he was back to being completely heterosexual again? Could he carry on living with Blair after something like that? 

The shower stopped. Sometime later, Blair emerged, fully dressed but with his hair hanging in dark, damp curls around his face. Jim headed into the bathroom for his own shower. He considered taking the opportunity to picture what Blair’s shower must have looked like, but it wasn’t fair to either of them to masturbate over his best friend. Jim focused on scrubbing away the grime of the last few days. When he was done with the shower, he dried off and came out of the bathroom, towel around his waist. 

Blair was laying out the take out cartons on the table with plates and cutlery, but he looked up at Jim. Jim caught the flash of desire, the subtle flushing of Blair’s cheeks, the way his breath caught in his throat. He knew that whatever he was feeling, he wasn’t alone in it. 

Jim headed up the stairs and put some clothes on. A minute later, he was sitting down to dinner with Blair. So normal. So new. 

“So...” Blair said, dragging out the word, making it a question. 

Jim decided that honesty was the only way forward. They’d face the consequences together. 

“I want you,” Jim said. “Physically.” 

“Me too,” Blair said. “I mean. I mean you. I want you.” 

It took a lot to leave Blair flustered and floundering for words. Jim supposed he should be flattered that he could render Blair inarticulate. 

“I don’t know if what I’m feeling is real,” Jim said. “I mean... I’ve never... I’ve never felt like this about a guy before.” 

Jim toyed with his food. He’d thought he was hungry but his appetite had died in the face of this awkward conversation. 

“I like women,” said Blair. 

“I think the entire world’s noticed that, chief.” 

“But I’ve been known to notice guys.” Jim was surprised by that admission, but then he realised he probably shouldn’t be. Blair was the definition of open minded as well as being insatiable both in curiosity and in libido. 

“I tend not to act on those feelings,” Blair said, “because it just makes life easier to play it straight. Still, I’m not exactly virginal in those areas.” Jim found himself clenching a fist under the table at the thought of some other guy being with Blair. He forced himself to keep calm and listen to the rest. 

“I’m not freaked out about being attracted to you,” Blair went on. “I’ve thought about it. When we first met, I noticed you. But then we were working together and then we were friends and I wasn’t going to risk messing this up. That’s what I’m freaked out about. You’re my friend, Jim, and I don’t want that to go away. If we do this, if we become something more than friends, I don’t want the friendship part to get lost.” 

“It won’t,” the words snapped out of Jim in an instant, even though that was exactly what he was afraid of. “Whether this is some Sentinel territorial thing or not, I don’t want to lose you as a friend.” 

“If we don’t do this, I’ll always wonder what might have happened. I love you, man, and I think we could be something more.” 

Jim pushed his plate aside, barely touched. 

“So, chief, want to try an experiment?” 

They stood, facing each other, the awkwardness tangible. Then Jim leaned down for the kiss. Awkwardness melted into desire and they were grabbing at each other. Their mouths devoured, merging with passion and fury. Jim had one arm wrapped around Blair’s back, the other hand sliding between strands of damp curls behind Blair’s head. Blair’s hands worked up and down Jim’s back, warm and familiar. One slid down to Jim’s ass, squeezing possessively. It felt right. 

Jim moved his hand down so that both were around Blair’s torso. He leaned back and lifted Blair into the air, not breaking the kiss for an instant. Blair clung on, wrapped his legs around Jim’s as Jim carried him over to the couch. He dumped Blair onto the cushions and the kiss parted. Blair was laughing slightly, his face alight with desire and pleasure. Jim climbed onto the couch on top of him, fumbling with the buttons on Blair’s shirt. 

Blair tugged at Jim’s t-shirt, lifting it up. The fabric bunch around Jim’s armpits and he sat up to get rid of it. As Jim stripped off the offending article of clothing, Blair sat up and licked Jim’s nipple. Jim shuddered at the unexpected act, warmth and moisture across the sensitive nub. 

Jim managed to get Blair’s shirt undone and he ran his fingers through the soft fuzz of hair, sensitive fingers mapping out the landscape of skin over muscle. He could have spent the night like that, learning every contour of Blair’s body, but Blair was impatient. He grabbed Jim by the shoulder and pulled him down for another kiss. 

Blair held Jim’s head in place with one hand. With the other, he fumbled for flies. Jim felt a release of pressure as his trousers came undone. He shoved them down with his boxers. They bunched at his knees and Jim got Blair’s undone too, forcing the fabric out of the way. Blair hadn’t worn anything underneath. That sent another shudder down Jim’s spine. 

Jim lay over Blair, his face buried in Blair’s hair. Blair’s scent filled his nostrils, soaking into the core of his being. Blair peppered his neck with hot, sweet kisses as their hips ground together, skin against skin, sweat against sweat. 

Jim felt Blair shudder beneath him. With a low moan, Blair came, shooting a sticky mess over both their stomach. The smell of it hit Jim like a tidal wave. Blair overwhelmed all of his senses. The feel of his skin, the taste of his kisses, the smell of his come, the sight of his beautiful face, the sound of his pounding heart. Jim came a moment later and then they lay, panting breathlessly on the couch. 

Thoroughly spent, Jim just lay there, content to breathe in Blair’s scent until the end of time. 

“Um... Jim? I hate to say this, but it’s really difficult to breathe with you lying on me. Jim?” 

Jim realised he was nearly zoning on Blair’s smell. He came to himself and pulled off the couch. He stood, looking down at Blair’s smiling face and half-naked body. He felt like he ought to find this awkward, but there was something that seemed so right about it. 

“Well,” Jim said, “I think that was a successful experiment.” 

Blair grinned, “True, but that’s the thing, you can’t rely on one result. All experiments have to hold up to thorough and rigorous repetition.” 

“Rigorous, eh?” 

“Absolutely.” 

“OK, but give me a little while to recover, chief. I’m not sure I’m up to round two quite yet.” 

Blair laughed and Jim knew they were going to be OK.


	17. Epilogue

Blair sat beneath the bright lights and hoped he didn’t look too nervous. The last time he’d been in front of his many cameras hadn’t gone down so well for him. This time, he’d had weeks to prepare and have discussions with the show’s producer about the message he wanted to get across. When the cameras started rolling, the interviewer gave Blair a broad smile that flashed perfect teeth at the cameras. 

“Mr Sandburg, welcome.” 

“Thank you and, please, call me Blair.” Good start. That didn’t sound too awkward and forced. 

“Blair, you’re here tonight to talk about Sentinels. Why don’t you start with a quick definition.” 

“No problem.” This was familiar ground. Blair had given the summary of what a Sentinel was several times over the past few weeks as he’d prepared the book and got the publishing contracts nailed down. He was able to give the facts quickly and succinctly. 

"I understand this isn’t the first time you’ve tried to publish a book about Sentinels. Is that right?” the interviewer prompted. 

“Not exactly. The first time, I wasn’t trying to get published. I’d written a dissertation for my PhD. I’d finished the first draft but was trying to work out how to keep it scientifically valid while protecting the privacy of the Sentinel I’d written about.” 

“You mean Jim Ellison?” 

“The fact that you know his name shows how successful I wasn’t. Anyway, the draft manuscript ended up in the hands of a publisher, who decided that they were going to publish it. They offered me a load of money and were so sure I was going to sign up that they started sending hints to the press without a contract in place. I’d not agreed to any of this and had no time to prepare for it. Jim didn’t know anything was happening until a load of reporters stuck cameras in his face and asked him what it was like to be a Sentinel.” 

"I bet that didn't go down well." 

“That would be an understatement. He was furious. In all the time I’ve known him, that was probably the closest Jim’s come to hitting me. All the news crews around were interfering with his job as a police officer. A man nearly died. Several of our friends got hurt. It was a mess. The publisher wasn’t backing down. So I pulled the plug the only way I could think of. I declared that my thesis was a work of fiction. It meant I never got my PhD, but it also meant that Jim could get on with his job and protect people. In the end, that was more important.” 

“After going through all that, why come out with this book now?” 

“I met a girl.” Blair laughed at his own joke, relaxing despite the cameras pointed at his face. “It wasn’t anything like that. She was another Sentinel. She’d spent two years in a psychiatric hospital because people mistook her heightened senses for hallucinations. Her boyfriend got hold of a copy of my thesis and realised the truth. Meeting her, hearing her story, made me realise how important it is that people know about Sentinels. There could be hundreds of others like her out there, locked up because people don’t understand. Or, they could be suppressing their abilities, pretending to be normal because they’re afraid of what their heightened senses might represent. I want to get this book out there as a guide to Sentinels and non-Sentinels. My new book contains stories from several different Sentinels with advice on how they learned to control their abilities. If just one other Sentinel reads those stories and takes away something useful from them, then this will have been worthwhile.” 

“How many Sentinels are there?” 

“I have no idea. For a while, when I was beginning my research, I despaired of finding one. Now I’ve met five and heard of another who’s sadly no longer with us. I’ve also met someone with heightened hearing, but not the other four senses. I don’t know how many Sentinels there are in the world, but if you take this group just in and around Cascade, that could mean hundreds or thousands worldwide. Maybe more.” 

“So what’s next for you, Mr Sandburg?” 

“Well, I’ll be continuing my work with Jim and the Cascade police department, but I’m also going to use the proceeds from this book to create a centre for Sentinels who need help. If there are Sentinels out there who are struggling to control their abilities, then they can come to the centre and receive help from other Sentinels and from those like me who’ve worked with them.” 

“That sounds like a great cause.” 

“Thank you. I came into all this wanting to learn about Sentinels. Now I want to take what I’ve learned and share it with the world.”


End file.
